Ifl
1 ll;
tmauora
afKe 9slttud of Progress
(Horttell Urnvmitg ^ilrtatg
THE GIFT OF
..UjL<<4ci<v little they knew of it even up to the time
of the exilings ! The earliest ancestors groped amongst
barren facts and their classifications. They named the
rocks and the elements of the rocks, and speculated on
the order of their formation ; they told the story of the
growth of glaciers in the original Antarctic land from
which their ancestors had migrated, and tried to ex-
plain the origin and development of the strange archi-
pelago in which they lived. But they saw no practical
application of the resulting theories: even when they
knew the stratum and its trend, they often failed in
their directions as to where certain minerals would be
found in it.
Still the strides made by the family both in the
knowledge and its application were marvellous, since
the island had been purified and the true purpose of
their civilisation was known. An instrument that I
84 Limanora
had grown accustomed to during the previous or gen-
eral stage of my education enabled me now to see at a
glance the improvements of each age or generation.
It was the ammerlin, which might be translated his-
toroscope. It focussed for the eye and ear any periods
of the past. The whole pageant of some section of the
history of any man, science, or object could be flashed
stereoscopically in a few minutes on a dark surface,
whilst all the sounds that accompanied the scenes
would be reproduced in any required pitch and tone.
It was one of the duties of the students and representa-
tives to take numberless sun pictures and sound pictures
of all the important scenes in the life of the family and
in the development of their science and art and instru-
ments. In order to reproduce any scene, the two long
strips of irelium that contained the series of momentary
pictures of it were made to rotate as swiftly as they had
rotated when receiving the impressions, and the sun
pictures being transparent, light and magnifying glasses
threw them life-size on a wall opposite the spectator;
the lightning movement produced the full effect of
action in life; and, as all the tints of the scene had also
been impressed on the strips, there was nothing want-
ing to produce the illusion of life but the voices and the
sounds. These, too, had been taken on an irelium
strip and this, when placed in a voice instrument,
added all that was needed to make the whole scene
live. It was the duty of the students in each genera-
tion to single out the most striking and representative
series and have them ready mounted in the instruments,
that any new scholar might in a few days take a bird's-
ej'e view of the whole development of the family.
Thus was I enabled to sit and study the past as if I had
been a contemporary and eye-witness of it. The very
Fialume 85
music that accompanied and harmonised each act and
scene was faithfully reproduced as loud or as low as I
desired. I had but to touch a certain spring in the
historoscope, and raise or lower the tone.
It was little wonder that we so rapidly covered the
history of the family and its achievements. By means
of the work of former students we were able to avoid
all the mistakes and unessential details of the route
they had traversed; and Thyriel's friends p.ointed
out every pitfall that edged the road, every by-path
that led only into the darkness or into some inextricable
labyrinth. Our steps were watched with infinite care;
for, with all the knowledge and skill we had already
acquired, we were but infants on the threshold of a
universe of darkness. What was twilight in the future
to our guides was to us midnight blackness. That
was no science, they held, which did not flash light
upon the gloom before us; and their whole efforts were
bent on turning every fact and law into a prophecy and
every student into a foreseer as well as a seer in his
own science. The limited faculties of man fenced in
by narrow bounds the future into which it was possible
for them to see; but they were ever extending these
bounds and creeping towards the infinite.
It took but a few years to master the recorded lore
of the I,eomo, the work of our predecessors had made
it so easy, and it was an epoch in our existence when
we began the practical part of our training. We were
bj' no means done with Fialume, but less time was now
devoted to its historical and theoretical studies. I well
remember the morning when our guardians and guides
informed us we were fit to see the practical applica-
tions of the science throughout the island. Taking
some new apparatus, they embarked me in a kind of
86 Limanora
faleena which had been invented since I came to the
island. The families of imagination had long ago
suggested it, and one of the families engaged in the
development of methods of flight had just succeeded
in perfecting its mechanism and making it easy to
manage. This aerial car had no wings, but rose by
means of the many vacuum tubes which were the most
important part of its impelling machinery. A power-
ful electric engine created and destroyed the vacuums
many hundred times a minute. Each tube sucked in
the air ahead and expelled it with great violence at the
stern of the car. Both actions aided in propelling the
faleena. The result was that, though not so graceful
as the old winged car, it went with much greater swift-
ness. Indeed, laden though we were, we kept pace
easily with the flight of my companions and guides
through the air; and its parachute attachments ob-
viated any risk, even if all the tubes should by accident
become ineffective. Its chief disadvantage was that it
could not rise out of the denser air of the lower atmo-
sphere, and at the same time keep up its great speed.
The old style of faleena, or farfaleena, as it was called,
to distinguish it from its new rival, the corfaleena, was
still kept in use for higher journeys, and the flight-
families set themselves the problem of inventing a
means of propulsion through space without the aid of
air. One dealt with the possibilities of electric cur-
rents, and experimented on the method of alternating
attraction and repulsion, using the repulsion in the
rear of the car and the attraction in front. Another
dealt with the possibilities of the rays of light that were
ever traversing space, experimenting on their power of
starting machinery in vacuo and keeping it in rotation.
A third made effort to test the capacities of the ether.
Fialume
87
which was the basis and medium of all things, a more
difficult and problematical path of investigation, yet
one not to be abandoned without certain proof of its
impossibility; for many apparently insoluble problems
had been solved in a manner that made incredulity
hide its head.
CHAPTER VII
LEOMARIE
AS I was attached to Leomarie or the science of
earth-seeing, I did not follow up their experi-
ments in the building of air-cars; I only saw the re-
sults when at last they came out perfect from their
hands, and greatly admired the easy and swift action
of their corfaleena. Over the hills and valleys and
plains we flew close enough to see what was going on
upon the earth below. Again and again we passed
over long wisps of steam or columns of dense smoke.
I conjectured that. the steam indicated the heat wells
like that which penetrated the rock near the house of
my proparents, and supplied every chamber with heat
or power as required. It went down some miles into
the crust of the earth, and could be closed or opened
at will by a huge lever worked by the steam it emitted
itself. The denser brooms of smoke I took to indicate
the sinking of their artesian power wells by the
leomoran.
For I had seen ours being mined; I had seen the
entrance of the great irelium tube into the earth, ring
within ring, and its slow but inevitable work from day
to day and week to week. The principle of this leo-
moran or earth perforator had been found by investiga-
Leomarie 89
tion of the anatomy and method of work of the pholas
or rock-boring shell, partly chemical, partly mechani-
cal. The edge of the lowest ring was like a sharp-
toothed file that, as it rotated by means of power
applied from the centre of force, wore its way gradually
into the rock, the ridges of the file being as hard as the
diamond. An inner ring-file was attached to it on the
inside, and between the two was let down a certain
chemical compound, which by the friction of the files
produced little explosions in the rock below and thus
quickened the process. Other ring-files followed in
the same way. Another chemical compound, differing
according to the character of the rock to be attacked,
was let down in the space within the concentric rings,
and rapidly decayed the rock so that it ascended like a
column of thick black smoke. After all the ring- files
were at work, the leomoran needed little guidance;
for bj' an application of the principle of the spectro-
scope, its use of the chemicals according to the nature
of the rock became automatic. As soon as the volatil-
ised mineral that ascended out of the rings changed its
character, the beams of light that passed through it
changed the spectrum; and the new spectrum in-
fluenced a certain solution that controlled a thread,
and this thread set free a stream of the proper chemical
compound down the leomoran.
A still more striking use of the spectrum was the
linoklar or spectroscope analyst and recorder. It ana-
lysed the vapours that ascended from the tubes, and
recorded their spectra on a moving strip of irelium
that was guided by the descent of the leomoran into
the earth. Thus anyone could see what strata were
passed through in any given time and the extent of
tUoi c+rofo "Rnf fhfa linnVlpr rlirl mnrTi mnrp tVinn fhic
go Limanora
whenever it struck any vein that had the much-desired
irelium in it in any quantity, its spectrum released a
spring which opened a small tube; through this
streamed the irelium vapour into a cavity of the earth,
where by means of a purifier it deposited only the pure
metal. There was less demand for the other metals,
gold, silver, platinum, tin, copper, iron. But there
was also an arrangement for separating and depositing
their volatilised forms in other cavities. Thus they
were able to have more than they required of the
metals, and especially of irelium, the most precious
because the most adaptable of all.
I was now to see a further development of these
mining instruments. We winged our way to a part of
the coast which was farthest from the surrounding
islands and most easily protected from invaders by the
storm-cone. I noticed the exceptional lowness of the
sandy beach, as shelving as that on which I had
originally landed; there were none of the great bastions
of rock which, moulded with such symmetry of terrace
and escarpment, barred off all landing on the island.
We directed our course far up the mountain and
alighted on a rocky platform overlooking the sea.
The new apparatus had been sent after us in a faleena
and was now placed in position. A cylinder was
erected on the ground and attached by machinery to
wires and pipes that had been laid from the centre of
force. But this was unlike the old leomoran in having
the mouth tightly closed, and I soon saw the principle
on which the new perforator was to work. The air
was exhausted in the cylinder, and then a powerful
stream of electricity was made to pass through a piston
constructed of innumerable wires which kept moving
with lightning rapidity over the surface of the rock at
Leomarie 91
the bottom. The success of the experiment soon mani-
fested itself; for, as soon as a spring was touched, a
valve that separated the end of a projecting tube from
the air-tight cylinder was opened, and out streamed a
dense column into the atmosphere above. The spring
was afterwards managed automatically so that as soon
as the red-hot electric piston had eroded enough of the
rock and volatilised it, the valve sprang open, and the
moment the vapour and smoke had all escaped, it was
shut, and the air was immediately exhausted.
We returned day after day to the place and found
that the new perforator, or tirleomoran as it was called,
worked with ten times the swiftness of the old instru-
ment. The chief objections to it were that the metal
vapours were denser and more offensive, and that the
irelium cylinders had to be oftener renewed because of
the great friction and the intensity of the electric heat.
The one was obviated by a longer smoke-tube and an
application of a vent of wind from the storm-cone; the
other was obviated by longer cylinders and refrigera-
tive packing between two of their layers of irelium.
But the strangest result — strangest for me at least-
was to come. The tirleomoran descended miles beyond
the usual force well into the crust of the earth, at a
great rate of speed, and I soon saw preparations for
some change. Great channels of their usual metal
were laid down to the beach, and irelium barriers
erected in the sea along the shelving shore from bas-
tion to bastion. By the greater rapidity of the descent,
the increase of the proportion of their favourite metal,
and the ease with which the electric current volatilised
the material below, our guides judged that they had
reached rock that was already molten. Before long
there began to ooze out of the smoke-tube a red-hot
92 Limanora
stream, that trickled its way down the slope. Then
the air-tight lid was burst off the cylinder, out of it
came the electric piston on a wave of red-hot lava, and
down the channels the thick stream of molten rock
flowed till it reached the barriers in the sea. There
with vast columns of steam it cooled and solidified,
forming a new and stronger rampart to check the in-
flowing fire. Day after day we found that the beach
was disappearing, and in its place, when the steam
cleared, we could see that the great gap in the bastion-
works of the island was filled up.
This was the first of their lava wells T had seen. Its
operations explained to me the massive symmetry of
the rocky shores and the cyclopean terraces and shoots
down the mountain-sides, that had, I thought, been
either chiselled by tens of thousands of years of slavish
labour, or laid by the hands of a race of giants now
vanished from the earth. This little people was itself
the Vulcan that turned the bowels of the world into
smel ting-works and used the mighty forces lying
underneath the crust of our orb with the ease of a
smith at his forge. What had the I,imanorans to fear
from invaders with even the mightiest war-engines
that had ever been invented ? They had made them-
selves fortifications which would outlast the attacks of
any human invention. When the beetling circle of
precipices was complete around their island who could
land troops, even if they evaded the blast of the storm-
cone? To the I,imanorans themselves the height of
their shores was no disadvantage; in fact it gave them
easy starting-points for their wing expeditions; they
could plunge from the jutting cliffs into the air and so
gain impetus for their flight.
Thus had they been able to destroy that spirit of
Leomarie 93
militarism which, after a certain stage, is the implacable
foe of true progress. It is based on two of the most
childish and most primitive of forces in the human
breast, combativeness and the passion for display.
Hence the impossibility of stamping out the contagion.
Ever and anon in the former history of the island the
age of peace seemed to have begun; but marauders
from abroad would land and stir the instinct of brigand-
age and make an army and a military leader necessary.
Thenceforward again all the arrangements of the com-
munity were made subordinate to the ambition of the
soldier. An intrusion of savagery and brute force,
however veiled in glory and the panoplies of civilisa-
tion, is irresistible by the powers of peace. Only slow
and silent conquest of the armed power brought back
progress in peaceful arts again, again to be maintained
and thrown back from some external accident. Not
that they ever pretended that they could eject struggle
out of their life, but they did aim to raise the plane of
conflict and competition. Never could this people
have entered on the rapid development of their powers
without their lava ramparts and their storm-cone to
keep oS' all occasions of militarism.
These lava wells had still other uses. Out of their
flow were made the rock foundations on which the
houses of this people were built. It puzzled me for
years to know how they succeeded in making their
immense platforms and terraces out of the hardest trap.
Their mansions stood out from the precipices and cliffy
sides of the mountain on isolated plateaus that gave
the inmates free view on every side and free circula-
tion of air around. They rose picturesque and romantic
from the top of lonely rocks, like the castles of the
Rhine, dominating the whole locality. Down the
94 Limanora
rocky foundations poured at times torrents of water
from the sluice-gates of the mountain, cleansing or
cooling the surroundings; yet never was there any
danger for these everlasting ramparts.
Another use to which these lava wells were put was to
modify the temperature. They were generally opened
and let flow in the coolest months of winter, and the
red-hot cascades falling into the sea heated it to such
an extent that the climate of the whole island was
mellowed and tempered. From the wells far up the
slope of the mountain the lava flow had been so guided
and moulded that immense channels had been made
down to the edge of the cliffs, with sides as lofty as the
precipitous shores themselves. Down these were shot
in summer great avalanches of mountain snow right
into the ocean, so tempering the strength of the sum-
mer heat.
But these were only subsidiary uses of the tappings
of the central earth fires. Their main and original
purpose was to relieve the perturbations of Lilaroma.
It was one of the chief duties of the Leomo to watch
over the destiny of their island, which was volcanic
in its origin, though it had been greatly added to in
former ages by the coral insect. Lava-streams had
overspread the coral, and then the myriads of minute
architects had thrust out their structures farther and
farther into the sea and thus the lowlands had been
broadly extended, while the red-hot layers of lava
added massiveness to the body of the island. Yet it
was continually shaken by earthquakes and threatened
with partial if not complete disaster. It was the func-
tion of L,eomarie to watch the approach of these earth-
quakes and guard against them. The Leomo had the
most delicate instruments for recording every tremor
Leomarie 95
of the earth's crust. They had also thermometers and
electrometers down their heat wells and lava wells,
and these automatically recorded at the surface every
variation of the heat and magnetism of the earth.
They had classified through many centuries all the
preliminary and concomitant circumstances of earth-
quakes, and had found and formulated certain causal
relations amongst them. Thus the minutest symptom
of change in the records made by their instruments
roused them to watchfulness. They were soon able to
tell in what direction the explosive materials were ac-
cumulating and how far below the surface of the earth;
then, when they had fixed with more or less definite-
ness the time they had to spare, they began sinking
lava wells right into the perturbed lake of fire. The
vent acted as safety-valve; the shakings of the island
ceased as the steam roared forth, and the molten rock
began to yeast down the side of the mountain. All
danger was past for another period of time. Again
and again throughout the past ages the lycomo had
saved the island from the ravages of earthquake and
uncontrolled lava-streams from the crater of Lilaroma.
Never did they intermit their vigilance or cease to ad-
vance their knowledge of the earth and its habits and
laws. It seemed to me at first that nothing could occur
in the crust of our planet which they would not foresee.
I came afterwards to know the limits of Leomarie, and
the reasons why they pushed almost feverishly forward
to further knowledge. They were ever afraid that
something unforeseen might occur and threaten the
stability of their land and the progress towards the
nobler life.
Once in the dark ages before the great exilings an
appalling disaster had occurred which ploughed deep
gS Limanora
into the consciousness of the people the necessity for
the development of this earth science. Their central
city stood upon a great plateau up the slope of Lila-
roma. Within recorded memory there had been no
great outburst from the mountain; and the inhabitants
travelled fearlessly up to its rim and down the bowl of
its crater. At times there had been slight spittings of
ashes and once or twice a new fumarole or hot spring
or even lava fountain had opened at some point on
the mountain slope; but these were all at a distance
from the bustling, luxurious city; and most of them
had awakened slight notice. The volcano indeed had
been practically quiescent since the great . migration
from the Antarctic regions and the sealing of the archi-
pelago by the circle of fog. The citizens were keeping
one of their annual feasts, and were lapped in luxurious
ease and pleasure. They had been exhilarated by a
long period of prosperity and a recent victory over the
savage clan that inhabited one of the adjacent islands.
The country people and a number of hermits living in
lonely parts of Limanora had been alarmed by various
premonitory symptoms, sultry clouds turbaning the
head of Lilaroma, tremors in the earth more and more
threateningly repeated, great and unaccountable dis-
turbances in the sea, and a hot, heavy, brooding atmos-
phere around the whole island. Some of them came to
the city and warned the revellers to be prepared for some
catastrophe; but they were waved aside as dreamers,
mere superstitious disturbers of life and its trafiic.
Half the city was gathered together in the central
market-place to see a great spectacle, when the earth
shook beneath them. They fell on their faces and
cried to their gods; but it was in vain. The market
stood upon a plateau high above the rest of the city.
Leomane 97
overlooking the ocean. Like a cap this platform was
blown into the air, and all the pleasure- seekers vanished
like smoke. Out on the sea and here and there on the
land a rain of dust fell mingled with minute pieces of
human flesh; but never was any one of the gathered
thousands found; and as if to obliterate the traces of
her ghastly work, the mountain sent down a broad
stream of lava, which filled up the gulf where the
market-place had been, and sealed up the dust-buried
city, preserving it for after-ages like a fly in amber.
Those who escaped destruction fled, some to distant
parts of lyimanora, some to other islands; but all were
buried for centuries in grovelling superstition. It was
out of the hermits and the country people that a new na-
tion was built up, which set itself as a first duty to es-
tablish Leomarie, that it should not betaken unawares
by any repetition of this great catastrophe. Nor has
it ever recurred, although there have been many pre-
monitory symptoms. The lava wells or vents eased
the labours of the internal fires and saved the island.
Their new and deeper wells, driven by the tirleo-
moran, and reaching the internal fires, gave them
greater sense of security. Irelium floats were let down
which would not be injured by the great heat, and
these, communicating with an indicator at the mouth,
told of every disturbance in the surface of the lake of
fire. All the indicators were connected with the centre
of force, and automatically recorded there all they had
to tell. The same system of centralised record placed
the various indications of the climolans or earth-sensors
at every moment ready to the hand of the Leomo.
These climolans were down every force-well and told
every variation in the heat, the density of the air, the
kind of vapour, the magnetism, and the movement of
98
Limanora
the crust of the earth. No change in the earth below
the island down to a distance of thirty or forty miles
(the latter the greatest depth they had reached) was
neglected. Every indication was properly tabulated
and classified, and year was compared with year and
month with month, till the meaning and importance
of every change were exactly known. The furthest
records of the past, as well as those more recent, were
daily consulted in order to find the generalisation that
would fit any new symptom. The I h
,«->
138 Limanora
their firla on the back of the neck, enabled them to
feel the faintest impulse from a distance and interpret
it, and a modification of the vimolan, used like spec-
tacles, reduced the sense-numbing power of distance a
thousand-fold ; they could see by means of these electro-
optical instruments the minutest movement many miles
oflF.
The most striking manifestation of their active elec-
tric faculty was to be seen only in a few Limanorans,
who would have been in the primitive ages leaders of
masses either as orators or as warriors. These had
such power of eye that they could bend others to their
purpose without the utterance of a word. It was not
greater genius or nobility of thought or strength of
character that made them so much more influential
than their fellows, but sheer magnetic force of will.
With evil motives or depraved minds, they would have
been dangerous to the whole community: as mere war
leaders or beasts of prey they would have been exiled;
but with beneficent purpose and a deep-ingrained sense
of the ultimate aim of their whole civilisation, they
were of great power on the side of progress. They
were the organisers of the community, the captains of
industry. They managed and directed the various
services in which all the citizens had to take part so
that there should be no superfluous issue of commands,
no friction, or even consciousness of direction. They
were in complete sympathy with all the people, binding
them into a unity of discipline; and their magnetism of
will, applied through the eye, served but to stir the
love of service and duty to enthusiasm. In an age of
semi-savagery, or of revised savagery such as the
military ages of Europe were, some of them would
have been great conquerors, combining many peoples
The Firla, or Electric Sense 139
and vast territories for a few years in order to sate
their ambition or love of glory. As it was, the equal
development of their other powers and the universal
dominance of the moral aim of the race made their
wills innocuous.
It was the same with the other manifestations of
human magnetism, which in defective or half developed
civilisations played so maleficent a part. That power
of voice and speech which could sway mobs to evil in
such communities was in I^imanora the endowment of
every citizen. The electric tone quivered and rang in
every voice I heard; it was like the sweetest music,
drawing the soul to it. The fascination of person-
ality, which so often in Western women, even where
they have no beauty or grace, proves the ruin of
dozens of men, belonged to both sexes in Limanora
and to every citizen. It was a powerful, diffused
magnetism ever attracting its opposite without reveal-
ing its secret even to its possessor. There was to me
something very winsome in most of them, even when
saying and doing nothing; and in Thyriel, although
my intellect told me she was not what Europeans call
beautiful, this became ravishing. Her personal mag-
netism was overpowering, even when she was silent and
stood at a distance, and in rude times of ignorance
would have been set down to witchcraft.
All these investigations and results I learned as
clearly as if I saw them with the eye, in the firlamai or
division of the electric sense, one of the vast halls of
Oomalefa. Here were all the instruments needed to
develop the firla or aid it, and all those by which
it sought deeper into the secrets of nature. Off the
hall ran corridors and arcades, which were to the firla
what picture and sculpture galleries are to the ocular
14° Limanora
imagination, supplying it with noble and pleasurable
excitation, as the music domes touched the aural
imagination. They had their passive firlamaic arts
of beauty as well as their active. In one vast arcade
they could sit and feel with their firlas the electric
harmonies of any given tract of air or earth or ocean,
the harmonies that play as it were on the surface; this
was equivalent to gazing at landscapes, real or pic-
tured, with the eye. In another there was firlamaic
sculpture; in this were gathered the noblest achieve-
ments of their electric artists, who strove to concentrate
into some definite form varied magnetic materials so
as to stir the imagination through the firla to thoughts
of the titanic harmonies of the universe. They gave this
form beauty for the eye as well ; but that was not the
primary aim; the gazers, as they sat, preferred to turn
their backs to the work; for then through the firla
their imagination was thrown into an attitude of placid
meditation which seemed to have before it some great
spheral harmony of the stars. In a third series of lofty
corridors there was continually proceeding what might
be called firlamaic music. In two or three it was
entirely instrumental. Great firlamans or electric
organs, at each end of one corridor I entered, flashed
out what was to me the most appalling medley of
lightnings ; the gleams crossed and interwove and
changed mass and form as if it were a dance of meteors,
now slow and stately like a minuet, again swift and
brilliant and dazzling as if the stars of heaven had
joined the lightnings in a bewildering yet harmonious
ballet. At first I was stunned and blinded; but soon
I felt dimly the ecstasy apparent in my neighbours.
Their eyes gleamed with joy; to me some of them
seemed almost in a delirium; they were unconscious
The Firla, or Electric Sense 141
of their immediate surroundings, for I spoke to Thyriel
and received no answer, and her motion through the
hall as we started to leave it was somnambulous. She
told me afterwards that, though her firla was only in
its infancy, she felt drawn up into the heavens as in a
trance; she seemed to feel the worlds move around her
and attract her into their spheral chant; her imagina-
tion dealt with interastral forces as with playmates
from eternity ; she leapt vast ages every moment, and
spanned in a stride spaces which seemed to her com-
mon powers infinite. She would not rest till she could
enjoy this macrocosmic orchestra to the full as her
parents did; she would not let a day pass without such
practice as would develop her firla to the utmost. I
felt solitary and forlorn as I heard her ecstatic descrip-
tions and resolves, and thought upon my incapacity to
understand them. In a moment she knew my dejec-
tion, and realised how forgetful she had been of me and
of her surroundings. She at once threw off her imagi-
native trance of magnetic enjoyment, and determined
to keep pace with my advance. It was a slow and
weary path I had to travel ; but her cheerful encourage-
ment prevented despair. Through the years between
I was able by dint of constant and vigorous practice to
concentrate into my eyes and into the back of my head
much of the magnetic power and receptiveness that had
existed before in my body, but in a diffused condition.
I was at last able to go with her and appreciate the
stellar imaginings which the flashing firlamans excited.
There was another majestic arcade, in which Lima-
noran artists themselves joined in sublime firlamaic
music. On my first visit to it, many years after my
introduction to Oomalefa, I was appalled to see human
142 Limanora
ning or flame from their eyes or fingers; they seemed
to stand unscathed in a fiery furnace, or rather to
weave and plait and mould the flames as if they had
been threads of some plastic material. Had I come
here during my early novitiate in the island, I should
have fled in terror as from dreams of hell realised.
There in the midst passed the artist like a dark shuttle
through a loom of lightnings as he wove them into an
ever-changing web of living colour. For a time I
could not control my terror, as I looked to see him
shrivelled to ashes. At last through my reason I man-
aged to calm myself into feeling that he was the master
and creator of this display and that the dreadful tongues
of flame and swift meteors which rose and vanished
around him were unstinged and innocuous. Then
began to creep into me a sweet sense of some magnetic
harmony, stirring my mind to contemplation of the
mighty forces of the world. I seemed to know the
voiceless majesty of time, as if vast ages were crushed
into moments; I followed our orb as it swept away from
the immense concentric circles of flame wheeling round
the core of whirling fire; I saw it mass into an eye of
passion fixed in gaze upon the mother star it had left;
alone it travelled into space tied like an infant still by
magnetic threads to the parent sun ; out into the in-
finite it yearned to rush seeking life and souls to nestle
in its bosom; yet never would the unseen mother cord
give way. Out and out flamed the earth into immeas-
urable space and the wild longing was calmed; the
tempests of fire lulled and fell; the luminous billows
ceased to rear their crests or toss their fiery spindrift;
a dull, still-glimmering crust imprisoned her torrid
heart; the conflagrations burst forth in wider and
wider intervals. At last she wooed the germs of life
The Firla, or Electric Sense 143
from the wandering infinities to rest for brief spaces on
her bosom. Night brought peace to her, and the stars
with their cool and uninipassioned rays bred within
her through the ages gentle thoughts and a love of
teeming life; they quenched her superficial fires, and,
binding chains of magnetic power around her, drew her
out into spaces of infinity beyond the scorching flame
tongues of her fervid mother. Life born and nursed in
the cold interstellar tracts teemed on her breast. Back
she sprang again into the warmer rays of the mother
orb, breaking the stellar bonds, and life leapt from sea
to air and crawled upon the new-won lands in mon-
strous forms. Last came the strangest monster of all,
erect like a bird, yet wingless, first swinging from tree
to tree, then skimming the plains upon the backs of
fellow-beasts he had mastered: man, the portent of
God, had Come. Slowly he grew and slowly sloughed
off his beast habits Prehistoric time focussed into a
moment. First came tyranny and war as moulders of
his spirit; then they became monsters, barring his way
to the divine. Great monarchies and empires flew by
like a lightning flash; thousands of years with their
events or somnolences passed swift as a dream.
Stronger grew reason in man's brain, the love in his
heart; divine influences surrounded him, watching the
dawn of the new power of thought and nursing the
growth of the spirit in him. Then out of the darkness
came the historic ages of this island's progress towards
diviner light, and rushed in a flash across my brain.
Then I awoke from this ennobling dream, swift and
beautiful as a trance made up of moments, each of which
contained an eternity. The electric song of the history
of our world had ceased, and my spirit fell like a meteor
from heaven, out of the exhilaration and the ecstasy.
144 Limanora
Never before had I felt as if my life was that of a god
watching from above the flight of time. I scarcely
knew that the darkness around me had suddenly
turned into daylight and the web of lightning flashes
had vanished ; I was led from the arcade by Thyriel as
in a dream. When we reached the gallery which over-
looked the ocean and I turned my eyes to the dome of
heaven, I was conscious that a new glory had come into
my life. Dim though my conception of the electric
song of creation had been, I realised with joy what a
vast universe had been added to the possibilities of
my life by the discovery of this new sense and of the
sublime things I might perceive through it. I would
not be behind Thyriel in the cultivation of the magnet-
ism in my system, but would enter with redoubled
ardour on the practice of my firla.
It was thus too I came to understand the passion
they had for Firlalain, as this section of Oomalefa was
called. The young were not allowed to enter it, lest it
should act as a narcotic on their sense of duty to the
ultimate aim of their civilisation. Not till they had
gained full mastery of themselves, and especially of
their appetites and passions, were they admitted, and
even then it was with a caution which showed the
greatness of the risk they incurred. The delights of
the new sense were apt to grow intoxicating, and there
had been at one time a fear of some becoming magnetic
drunkards, who would spend their days in Firlalain
besotted with indolent enjoyment of the exhilarating
flight through the realms of fancy, and heedless of the
health and interests of their other tissues. Once they
had reached maturity, there was no such fear; and no
curb was then set upon their liberty to enter these halls
of electric harmony.
The Firla, or Electric Sense 145
After they had come to that stage of life when the
walls of their blood-vessels began to lose flexibility, it
became almost a duty to frequent Firlalain. The
stimulus given to the currents of life by the mere phy-
sical influence of the electricity was enough to overcome
the growing rigidity of cell and tissue; but the rush
of thought and fancy gave the whole nature such im-
petus that the torrent of the blood through its chan-
nels induced the plasticity of youth again. They had
other methods of postponing the approach of old age;
they could withdraw from the walls of the various
vessels of the body the accumulation of lime and other
hardening elements; there were several chambers of
diet the atmosphere of which neutralised the increase
of salts and carbons in the body, and other medicinal
chambers which could bring ofi' by the pores any dele-
terious or obstructive matters forming in any of the
tissues; but Firlalain was the most effective postponer
of that stage of life when yearnings come into the heart
for final and complete rest, for it flooded the whole
being with new impulse and new energy. Most of all
was the great stellar arcade frequented by the old in
order to drive off the ennui of existence; a feeling
which indicated the gradual calcarescence or indura-
tion of the brain and heart-tissues. Here any region
of the starry night they chose could be made to con-
centrate its magnetic influence upon their firla. A
man might take a new tract and new blending of im-
aginative impulse every day of life for centuries and
yet not exhaust the limit of variety; for the stars
moved through infinite space as the earth moved, but
in different directions, and ever new universes or worlds
were coming within the range of the lyimanoran electric
sense.
146 Limanora
I shall not easily forget my first experience of this
astral gallery. Along it at intervals were placed great
electroscopes and magnetic magnifiers, that gathered in
electric influences from various portions of the heavens.
Almost every seat was occupied by one of the older in-
habitants of the island, and as they sat with the focus
of the huge instrument resting on their neck their faces
seemed almost to have a halo round them, so brightly
did they beam with ecstasy. Their eyes were closed,
and I would have said that each was dreaming some
dream of glory which inundated his being, had I not
seen their eyes open for a moment as we passed, in con-
sciousness of the world around; the vision came to
their waking imagination. Then I looked up through
the great magnifying domes and saw the stars and con-
stellations mass upon the face of heaven, and huge
spheres concentrating upon themselves the sheen of
some starry circle.
Tbyriel led me to one vacant seat, and before I
turned my back to the magnetic lens, I gazed upwards
and saw the Southern Cross pouring down its silver
arrows. I had not sat there long before a thrill came
upon me which spread throughout, my system; my
pulse fluttered like a bird in contending storms; every
nerve began to throb with expectation and delight; I
could have created worlds in my ardour ; sublime
thoughts swam in from eternity upon my soul ; I had
the mother passion within me which would have
moulded nobler spirits than my own. At last I felt
the currents of my existence centre upon one realm of
space and was conscious of countless life around me
which struggled and mounted upwards. I felt my
nature drawn to higher levels than any terrene exist-
ence I had ever known. I seemed to breathe with
The Firla, or Electric Sense i47
difl&culty the diviner airs of greater purpose, and yet
there were strains of discord from lower types of being
revealing gradations in the new universe. Some orbs
were already on the path of decay ; and on them the
higher life was succumbing to the weakened vitality.
Others had just attained to life; and on them had
settled migrants from other spheres, whose elevating
powers they had exhausted. Some were flitting like
ghosts about their mother suns with but a thin ethereal
life now darting between atmosphere and solid crust.
Only one planet in each system was passing through
the climax in its history, and near it my rapture became
too great to bear; my veins seemed on the point of
bursting with the fulness of life; my soul was dragged
above my natural level, till the physical bonds which
fettered me were about to break, and I was glad to be
attracted to other circling orbs that with coarser but
stronger magnetism drew me to them. The median
point of balanced joy was reached when, resting be-
tween two spheres, I felt their magnetic currents
neutralise each other, and yet the higher influence of
the new system raise the pulsing of my spirit. As full
bliss was it when, darting from system to system, I ex-
perienced the power of life that dwelt in each, and felt
the varied types of existence mingling their magnetic
thought with mine; I could feel the struggling of
worlds up to their goal thrill through my spirit; on
the underside it was like the wail of one who has aban-
doned the upward conflict and plunged into the waters
of oblivion; on its upper side it was like the fervour of
souls who see through mists of life the elysium they
have yearned for. T was conscious of the infinite
tragedy being enacted upon each orb, and yet not near
enough to see what destiny awaited it. I was drawn
148 Limanora
within the eddy of a iiew and loftier ambition; my
spirit perceived stages of being- within its reach, yet
beyond all it had known; and it throbbed with new
eagerness to rise above itself. Nothing could be more
rapturous than the consciousness of this system beyond
system, each with its own type of life and stage of
spiritual aim, each with its peculiar medley of magnetic
influence, each drawn into its own vortex of emotion
and energy.
A touch on my hand broke the spell, and I was down
on earth again, exalted, yet knowing the contrast. It
was Thyriel, who would remind me of my duty to my
own being and to the state. I arose and moved out
with her but she knew the ecstasy too well to break
in on my dream, and led me out to the sea arcade,
where I could hear the low rippling melody of the
waves beneath and the faint music of the world of air.
I turned my eyes up to the azure, and seemed to tread
amongst the orbs that veiled their silver radiance in the
blaze of noon. Out of my life, I am sure, the exalta-
tion never wholly vanished. I had been among the
living fountains of eternity. I had moved conscious of
the birth of worlds, and known the throb that is a
myriad of ages. Was this not to be kin with God, to
know the all-grasping passion of a moment of divine
life ? Ever and again the greatness of the memory
flamed out into conflagration within me, and I was
then in the mood to make or conquer worlds; and
never wholly out of my blood died the exaltation I
had felt.
CHAPTER XI
A CATASTROPHE
BUT long years divided my first visit to Oomalefa
and my admission to Firlalain. I saw that there
were certain vast sections of Oomalefa that I was led
past; massive portals showed their rank, but the num-
ber on them defining the age at which entrance was
possible warned us off, and allegorical pictures adorn-
ing their arches figured the decay of tissue and cell that
would result in the youthful body from too early ad-
mittance. Any curiosity Thyriel or I could have felt
was repressed by these ominous symbols; for this
people never relied on mere authority. Their strongest
prohibitions were in the form of graphic appeals to the
reason, and only where these could not impress youth-
ful natures sufficiently were the emotions involved;
the influences of any special indulgence upon the
human system were represented in living form, which,
looked at through a medium magnifying them ten
thousand-fold, stirred the heart of all the more deeply.
We saw in a moment that we were unfit to enter Fir-
lalain, and we passed on into the vast series of baths
wherein the Limanorans could rid their bodies of ob-
structive or noxious elements. Here was every grade
of temperature endurable by their tissues: for every
149
150 Limanora
grade there was a separate swimming-pool in which
they could exercise themselves; and every hour auto-
matic machinery driven by force from Rimla sent the
contents of each pool into one of the lava wells, where
in a few moments the water and all the debris thrown
ofiF from the bathers' bodies vanished in fire. These
baths were so arranged that not more than two should
be empty together, and at the general entrance were
seated two medical counsellors, who measured and
tested the state and temperature of the body, and
showed graphically what would be the effect of enter-
ing each bath of the series to which the state of the
bather restricted him.
Far more important than these water baths were the
baths of ether, baths of magnetism, and solar baths, in
which any portion of the body or the whole of it could
be submitted to the purified forces of the world. From
the ethereal baths all terrene elements were exhausted,
and there remained the pure medium of life beyond
our atmosphere, the divine air which spiritual beings
breathe. Nothing so raised the power of the mind
over the body or the part of the body immersed in this.
It partially and for the time being dematerialised the
part, withdrawing its earthy tendencies, aud giving it
an exhilarant atmosphere in which it acquired new life
and energy, and resisted the encroachments of lower
parasitic life. The two other kinds of baths had some-
what the same effect, but were less powerful than this.
Magnetism allowed the ether a more direct influence
than either water or air; it concentrated the force of
the purer medium on any point, The solar baths had
been used from time immemorial. It had been one of
the earliest discoveries of their science that the lower
organisations and microscopic forms of life that bat-
A Catastrophe 151
tened on the human frame lost vitality in the full
beams of the sun. I^ater their investigators had found
that solar radiance dispelled the vapours and terrene
elements which floated in the air, clinging invisibly to
bodies and forming the feeding-ground of quickly
generative microbes. It purified by its energy all that
it came into contact with, and in short allowed the
ether which was its medium freer play. For genera-
tions sunshine had been one of their most successful
curative agencies and was now used to reinforce and
stimulate human life and energy. The rays of the sun,
blanched to some extent of their heat and excessive
force, were concentrated in rooms made wholly of
transparent irelium, or upon irelium glasses of various
shapes and forms to suit the part of the body to be
subjected to their influence. These were their solar
baths; but their whole system of life was one con-
tinuous solar bath: for every corner of their houses
both public and private was laid open to the sun's in-
fluence from dawn to twilight, and this stored up in the
atmosphere of the rooms and halls forms of energy
which during the night gave ease and exhilaration to
those who slept. They fully realised that it was not
merely heat and light they got from the sun, but subtle
energies, a fine aroma from the diviner medium that
filled the interstellar spaces.
Every Limanoran of an age to be admitted to Ooma-
lefa resorted several times a day to each of these three
kinds of baths. First came a magnetic bath, in which
every organ and tissue was stimulated to throw off its
debris towards the pores. Then came the swim in one
or more of the pools, in order that all this rejected
part might be washed off. After this came the solar
bath, which penetrated into the superficial channels of
152 Limanora
the body and swept away all bacterial life that might
be nocuous. The last stage was the ethereal bath,
which was enjoyed in solitude and could be endured by
any but the mature for only a few minutes; the ex-
hilaration and tenuity of atmosphere were too great for
unaccustomed lungs, and I could see the heads of the
bathers thrust out at short intervals to take a breath.
But long practice made the older Limanorans enjoy the
buoyancy of the pure medium for hours. It was in-
deed one of the hopes of the race that they would be
able at last to breathe the interstellar ether with greater
ease than the air surrounding their own earth.
It was in these baths I first came to see the marvel-
lous grace and plasticity of their garments. They
were outside of all my previous experiences and concep-
tions, and seemed so natural that I took them for a part
of their material outfit like their hair. It had never
entered into my mind to question whether they laid
them aside in sleep or not. Perhaps it was owing to
the beauty and animation of the countenance, when
they spoke or even looked, that I had not paid any
attention to their dress except to see how it never im-
peded their movements either in flight or in work, and
how it varied with the individual, and never with the
sex or age or profession ; it belonged to the childhood
of the world to regiment men in the minor details of
life. Now I saw in the baths that the vesture did not
need to be laid aside in other elements than air. It
was made of some fine and flexible stuff woven out of
irelium threads, plastic to the shape, yet capable of
stiffening out when the wearer sent an electric wave
through it from the electro-generator he always bore
under his right arm. This process at once shook out
every drop of water from it, when he issued from the
A Catastrophe 153
bath or the sea. It was so porous that it seemed
fragile, and yet it could bear great strains. Through
its pores passed with ease the water or air or ether that
was to influence the body underneath; and along its
threads passed with ease, any magnetism the wearer
wished to feel. In certain lights it was almost trans-
parent, yet with such a play of rainbow colors that it
seemed a living fence against lights and shadows. In
the darkness it shone with dazzling radiance as soon
as the electric current flowed into it. At the will of
the wearer it could be, like a magic garment of invis-
ibility, black as midnight, yet in daylight could reveal
every grace and tint of the limbs it covered, clinging
closely like an outer epidermis to the body. Nor was
it ever laid aside except to be replaced by a new ves-
ture, and that was every few days; for all germs and
debris that adhered to it or obstructed its pores could
be destroyed and got rid of by the electric current the
wearer had control of. It was on my first visit to
Oomalefa that I came to know these things, as it was
then that I first donned a like vesture, and was taught
its properties and the ways of managing it and the
minute electro-generator that went with it.
There were alternative garments, that they wore
under different conditions. One, almost as plastic as
the ordinary vesture, but armoured by electricity
against the inroads of excessive cold, was worn when
they ventured up into the higher regions of the air or
beyond; for it enabled them to keep up the natural
temperature of the body as they flew. Another was as
well suited for protection against extreme heat. It
consisted of an asbestine double wall of irelium, within
which was kept up a constant current of cold air by
154 Limanora
and arms; and, if they could get moisture from the
atmosphere to run between the two textile folds, it was
at once frozen. Such an arrangement was necessary
in their adventurous experiments in the bowels of the
earth or under the blazing eye of the sun. The most
beautiful and most convenient of all their vestures
was one which looked and felt like a film of white
cloud; I would have said that it was woven of the
misty fleeces that caught and rent themselves on the
lesser peaks of I,ilaroma. It was indeed no distant
mimicry of this; for though it could be thrown loosely
round the figure in the most graceful forms like a toga,
and seemed as thin and fragile as gossamer, it consisted
of a treble fabric; between two transparent films, fairly
delicate as if woven by a spider on a windless dawn,
moved in cloud-like purity and dimness the airy vapour
of some liquid that shone as silvery and warm as moon-
light. Its purpose was to conceal and yet to reveal the
general contour and movements of the body; to sift
the strength of the sun's rays as they fell in their purity
from heaven, and yet to pass as much of their curative
power through it as the skin needed; to cling to the
limbs, and yet to impede them no more than a fleece of
cloud would.
It was as I was studying the texture and the beauty
of these garments that there happened the first ap-
proach to panic I had yet witnessed among this calm-
eyed people. There had been a stillness as of ill-bridled
tumult in the atmosphere all day. My proparents had
moved restlessly abroad from daybreak, and all the
Leomo were on the wing husbanding every minute with
feverish clutch. We were sent in squadrons to differ-
ent parts of the island, and many new leomorans were
set to work in unaccustomed corners of the mountain,
A Catastrophe 155
yet there was a look of baffled intelligence in every
face. I that felt there was an undeciphered portent
overshadowing their life. Thyriel and I had worked at
two new leomorans and watched them till they wielded
their brush of smoke across the sky. We had done all
that we could and were sent out to Oomalefa to uncloud
our troubled minds.
The excitement of this new sphere had removed from
our thoughts all ominous shadows and we were as
innocently absorbed as primitive men of the wood-
lands in the wonders now opened to us; but silence
had fallen upon the gambolling swimmers, and the
hush awakened us from our new dream. We felt the
foundations of the building tremble and quiver like a
panic-stricken beast. Up the translucent walls clicked
a huge rent, and slowly the liquid in the baths hissed
and vanished. A tumultuous muffled cannonade rolled
beneath us. The crystal roof crackled and snapped
like ice-rafts that groan and toss before a sudden flood.
The chink widened into a chasm, and through it we
could see the ocean seethe in turbulence and revolution.
Up through the roof whizzed the wings of the alarmed
bathers, and as the jarring and detonation grew, I
stood knowing not whither to turn. All I could do
was to bid Thyriel follow her mates. More awful
came back the reverberations from the domes, and
Thyriel's face was pale and her lips set, but she did
not move. Finally she bade me follow her to that end
of the gallery farthest from the chasm in the walls, a
raised platform whence the swimmers dived. There
she placed me with my back to hers, and ran a rope
under my arms. Before I knew what she was about,
I was off my feet ; she was running at full speed up
156 Limanora
the air. I heard the beating of her wings, and lay still
lest I should baffle her purpose. I lay on my back be-
tween her wings, and shuddered as I saw their points
broken against the lips of the chasm. A deep-mouthed
clangour filled my ears; and for a moment my eyelids
fell in palsied terror. When I raised them and looked
down, the vast crystal of Oomalefa had vanished and
the great promontory stood gaping, with the surf hiss-
ing and baying as it leapt over the upper surface.
I felt that Thyriel was almost exhausted, and thought
of detaching myself from the rope which bound me and
leaping into the ocean; but the idea had not quite
grown into resolve when I saw her wings beat slower
and knew that we were hovering over the solid land.
In a moment we were standing side by side, she
exhausted, I supporting her with my arms. It was
not long before she recovered herself, for her attention
had been awakened by a startling appearance out in
mid-ocean. A high peak rose beyond the cleft and
scarred promontory where there had been only waves
before, its head turbaned with steam and smoke. It
was still shouldering the sea to right and left with hiss
of lava tongue and splash of cinder shower. We could
not speak for alarmed wonder, and mingling with mine
there was deep sorrow over Oomalefa vanished. What
had become of.it I could not tell. Thyriel roused her-
self and, divining my thoughts, led me to the steps
which had once given entrance to the starry portal.
She stooped and lifted in her hand some of what
seemed to me fine-sprinkled snow, that covered every
inch of rock. It was irelium dust. Once the cohesion
of the great edifice had been overcome by the shocks
of the earthquake, it fell not into fragments or huge
blocks, but into its constituent atoms. Nothing, I
A Catastrophe i57
thought, could ever replace the wondrous palace of
delights that I had only begun to know.
I felt saddened beyond recovery, as we turned home-
wards, over the ruin of such magnificence and so great
hopes. Thyriel's dejection, I discovered, was retro-
spective. She mourned over the failure of Leomarie,
the earthquake art of her family and friends. They
had thought that they could anticipate and prevent all
the grumblings and revolutions of Ivilaroma, and this
outbreak had shown the imperfection of their know-
ledge and the limits of their art. Though but a novice,
I could see that something was yet wanting to make
them masters of the crust of the earth. For the first
time for many generations their foresight had failed.
They had known that there was disturbance beneath
the mountain, but they had been unable to fix its
centre, which was far out at sea. The inflow of the
Waters had baffled the power of their mountain-cupping
instruments, and the rapidly generated steam had rent
the crust in the line of Oomalefa; and until the slow-
trickling lavas and the swift-belched ashes had sealed
the lips of the chasm again, there was danger, they
knew, of the whole island exploding. How they were
to prevent or even anticipate such cataclysms was a
problem that weighed upon every member of the family
and saddened every leisure moment.
For some days the I^eomo were busy with the
wreckage of the outbreak. I was attached to the sec-
tion that had to inspect the lava wells, gauge the
amount of molten matter which had oozed from each,
repair every clirolan or other instrument that had been
deranged, and replace those submerged. The urgency
of the occasion excused us from the regular duties and
.1 _._ -Til J All ».^» #iU1ii(-i<->«^ nt^A a.c•c^a.r^i■^n^
158 Limanora
exercises were performed in the private mansions.
Most of the hours not spent in sleep were devoted to
the tasks made for us by the new exigency. The
excitement removed the monotony and burden of the
work, and almost before we knew that there was so
much to do it was done. New wells were sunk and
new clirolans fixed wherever the overflow had choked
or sealed the old. The instruments of even the most
distant section of the island were put into their best
working order.
Then we were free to scatter to the winds and to fol-
low our old delights. Thyriel set herself with renewed
eagerness to teach me the art of flight, and I attained
the power of describing an easy curve from a shoulder
of Ivilaroma down to the plain. Again and again in
her new desire to master flight with me seated between
her wings, she carried me up to some jutting platform
of the mountain : and then she showed me how to work
the wing-engine with ease. I could keep level with
my starting-point for a few minutes, but after that I
had to let myself glide down the parabola of the air. I
was too heavily weighted by gravity and the inertia of
my muscles to rise as she did.
There were many secrets of their flight that I soon
understood. The curious construction of the wings,
formed as they were of two sliding membranes, I have
already described. What I had taken for a mere
rudder was a large series of small screws that gave
forward motion to the flight. The engine that whirled
them round as they churned the air was of great
power, and without them the flight would have been
but slow and clumsy. It was through inability to
manage this engine that I was so long in mastering
even the rudiments of the art.
A Catastrophe 159
I progressed greatly that day, and would have pro-
gressed more but that the lesson was abruptly broken
off. In each new air voyage to a higher sally-point
she bore me farther round the mountain towards the
great plain that stretched to the south. When we
reached our last flight platform, and I had descended,
my glance shot over the countless centres of industry
and investigation that stippled the rolling downs. It
was a noble sight, and I could have long rested in the
gaze: but an unwonted gleam drew my eyes to the
precipitous coast. There on a vast new promontory
which ran out miles into the sea was gathered such a
galaxy of jewelled domes rainbow-lit by the sun as I
could not have conceived even from my remembrance
of Oomalefa and its marvellous architecture. Thyriel's
eyes had also been riveted by the spectacle'. "It is a
new Oomalefa," she burst forth. I could not believe
it; how could such a palace of wonders be reconstructed
in so short a time? There were only a few thousand
mature Limanorans; and if they had been all engaged
on such a structure night and day it would have taken
many busy years to rear it. I took it for a mere illu-
sion. The position of the sun and some unusual com-
motion in the sea had produced it by reflection and
refraction. It was but a bubble of the imagination
bred by some abnormality in our eyes upon our memory
of Oomalefa and the grief of our minds at its evanish-
ment.
So I argued. But Thyriel was silently decided in
her dissent. We could take no more interest in our
aeronautics, nothing could keep our gaze from that
radiant orb resting, gigantic, on the beach. As the
sun declined the facets of the new jewel shimmered
with livine- sheen: now it was a city of burnished gold.
i6o Limanora
again it was a myriad of lambent flames aspiring to the
centre of fire: now a thousand rainbows weaving and
unweaving themselves, again uncounted stars clustered
and heaped in restless silver, or wintry thistledown of
swarming snow. Surely it was but an army of will-o'-
the-wisps lit in the marsh fumes that the gaping sea
had sent forth. Yet as I gazed it grew in my mind
that this sparkling halo had a fixed centre; there was
symmetry in the refulgence and in the recurrence of
colour and sheen. It could not be illusion; we were
both transfixed like sculptures in eternal gaze.
The flash of wings .broke the completeness of the
glory and our spell. Above the transplendent spec-
tacle fluttered a snow-storm of ariels; the sun shot a
fiery gleam through a rent cloud, and across his silvery
beams dariced and played these winged motes. The
beauty of the .sight moved us almost to tears. We
knew that this was no phantom joy; our fellows were
aloft in the air hymning the glory of a new creation.
Soon Thyriel had persuaded me to start with her
towards the new palace of wonders. We had not got
half-way when I felt my arms weary and my flight
dragging towards the plain. She would not leave me
to trudge across the uneven earth; before I could
argue she had me safely nestling between her wings as
they beat the air upwards from the low knoll on which
we had alighted. She no longer laboured under her
burden, as she had done in her first attempt some days
before; yet I felt that she grew tired, and made her
land upon a hill a few miles from the new Oomalefa.
After a rest I was able on my own wings to curve down
towards its flight of new-rocked steps and its scintillant
portal.
We entered, and all was joy and music. Up under-
A Catastrophe i6i
neath the new domes flitted the happy artists putting
the final touches on the tinted transluceuce of the
irelium walls. The plan was more elaborate and yet
simpler than the old Oomalefa. The beauty of it was
more overwhelming to the imagination of the eyes. I
could not have conceived two structures more unlike
from their larger architecture down to their minutest
detail of ornament, and yet so adapted to the one pur-
pose. The halls of medication and sustenance, the
galleries of the magnetic sense, the baths, the arcades,
and the sea balconies were all complete, yet as different
from those that had gone to dust as Western architec-
ture from Oriental. New instruments and apparatus,
new indexes and tests were there at work. Not a
detail had been neglected; but the rocky platforms
over the sea were broader, and when we flew into the
air and looked at it from above we could see that the
promontory stretched farther into the sea and was
broader both on its surface and at "its base; and
strange to say, it had as its outermost point the new
peak that the eruption had thrown up in the ocean. It
was conjectured by the Leomo, I soon knew, that this
line, now sealed tip as it was and with its lava vent at
its outer extremity, would be freer from terrene par-
oxysms than any other portion of the island marge.
This was where my proparents and the rest of the
earth artisans had been engaged so busily during these
days; they had been guiding the lava flow along the
line of rent out through the sea to the great beacon
which the outburst had raised; and the dash of the
waves had cpoled and congealed each layer as it flowed
and curdled from the new peak to the shore of the
island.
CHAPTER XII
OOIvORKFA
BUT by what magic had this wondrous jewel group
of domes and spires and minarets grown upon the
platform within these few alternations of sun and dark ?
From my own experience of bastioning the shore I was
able to understand the rapidity with which the founda-
tions had been laid. My wonder grew all the more at
the marvellous piece of art that now stood upon them ;
every detail waS so complete and so beautiful. The
giant forest aisle of Cologne Cathedral, the mosaic
splendour that had overawed me within St. Peter's,
the statued frost-work of Milan, seemed to me tawdry
beside the colossal domes with their jewelled magnifi-
cence and the infinite variety in simplicity of the laby-
rinth of arcades and galleries and arches. Yet those
were the fruits of a thousand years' faith and work;
this was the product of a few days. The more I
thought of it, the more bewildered I was.
*Thyriel divined my thoughts and saved me from my
perplexity. " You have never seen the Ooloran," she
exclaimed. I asked her what it was. I could see that
the word might be translated sonarchitect. Her de-
scription of it, though lucid as usual, did not convey to
my slow thoughts a full idea of the instrument; and
162
Oolorefa 163
we got permission to visit Oolorefa, or the hall of archi-
tecture, the following day.
In the multiplicity of wonders throughout Limanora
I had failed to notice this great edifice, although it
stood on a level, symmetrically cut plateau, command-
ing all the region in which were gathered most of the
exceptionally great and magnificent structures of the
island, and was but one of a series of gleaming palaces
which crowned the points of the rocky spurs of Lila-
roma. In each palace was concentrated some one of
the services that the new civilisation had to offer to the
progress of the race. I had visited a few of them, and
it was part of the programme of my education to make
me spend such space and time in each as the desire or
the necessity arose in my life; but it had never struck
nie to inquire how the marvellous buildings had arisen.
Nor, though I had noticed the frequent change of out-
ward shape and ornamentation of parts of the mansion
of my proparents, had I ever had leisure or curiosity
to find out the reason or source of the transformations.
It was delightful to see the growth of the building and
to remove into the new parts; and as silently and
invisibly the sections we had left vanished. I had
never time to grow tired of one chamber or set of
chambers before another was ready for me. It was
like the growth of a palace of "dreams; but I soon ac-
cepted it as one of the magic habits of the island, a
natural feature of my life, never rousing query and
seldom awakening even thought. So much of new
and striking was crowded into the days and months
and years that large portions of the civilisation had to
pass uncommented on and ultimately unnoticed.
With the same wonder with which in later life we be-
164 Limanora
our bodies I entered on my new investigation. As we
approached Oolorefa it seemed to me that we had made a
mistake and come to the wrong building; for it rang
with the most entrancing music and I thought that it
must be the cathedral of the island. It had one vast
central dome surrounded by countless cupolas, and as
we skirted the edifice I heard underneath each of these
smaller roofs sweet melodies sounding too low to be
heard beyond its partition walls and almost drowned in
the thunderous diapason of the central dome. These
I took for chapels and fanes subsidiary to the great
temple, round which they clustered.
We entered and I was amazed to find under what I
had thought to be the temple of the island a great
mansion, but dwarfed by the height and size of the
temple roof. The fence enclosing it had just been
shaken to dust by their new electric process for the
atomising of irelium. What was to be done with
the new structure ? It was walled in by the giant
cupola, and could not possibly be removed. The
thought was beating about in my mind, but ceased
before a sudden crash; I looked up and there, one
complete and evenly cut quadrant of the dome had
vanished, and the bright sun shone in undimmed by
any medium. I again noticed something going on
around us. Great flanks like the sides of a ship were
fitted to the bottom of the new building, and along
them underneath were adjusted huge floats. Wings
were then attached to either side, and a strong wing-
engine was placed in the body and two rudder-engines
in the after-part of the raft. They were rapidly charged
with electricity, the floats were exhausted of their
heavier air, and up rose the whole structure through
the huge aperture in the dome; and I could see its
Oolorefa 165
pilots guide it this way and that through the air to fit
the unequal and varying wind that blew, till at last it
disappeared round a shoulder of Lilaroma. I had run
out of Oolorefa to watch the flight of the great mansion
on its aerial raft, and when it went out of sight I re-
turned, reflecting with a sigh of relief that this ex-
plained the magic growth of the house in which I lived;
the additions had arrived and been fixed and adapted
to the purposes of human habitation while I was sleep-
ing or absent on my daily pursuits.
I was startled when I got back to find the dome com-
plete again and preparation being made for construct-
ing some other irelium shell. The fence-work had
been raised. By its wall stood the key-board of a
gigantic organ-like musical instrument, the other half
of which was so arranged within the new framework
that the whole volume of its sound should bear upon
whatever the fence enclosed. A huge bell mouth
opened out into the chamber; and I soon saw that out
of this issued a snow-storm of irelium particles which
floated lightly in the air. A peal of music rang out
from the instrument, and I saw the dust motes settle
rapidly into a symmetrical figure, that minute by
minute grew into a gigantic nautilus shell. The musi-
cian who sat at the key-board watched the snow-whirl
within and the magical rise of the walls. I perceived
-that the bar of music was repeated again and again,
with gradual ingrafting of variation as the shell-like
walls bent over. At a certain point where the whorl
began to incurve backwards the strain completely
changed and reminded me of a fugue. Back and forth
it shot its monotonous shuttle of sound. I was spell-
bound by the cradling melody and the sinuous flexure
nfthp vae)- pntinli Thp cnmcletion of the orocess and
1 66 Limanora
the cessation of the music broke the spell, and I pressed
near to ask explanations and to see the result. Some
enchanter's power must surely have drawn in the float-
ing particles to the thin curves of the structure and
held them there; for the motes continued to float un-
attracted, but in sparse and sparser cloud; and at last
they ceased to move, and settled on the fence, dimming
its translucence. I felt the metal floor grow first hotter
and hotter, and then cooler and cooler till it was ice-
cold. Within a fraction of an hour the whole process
was complete; the fencing walls were shaken to dust,
and there stood the gigantic nautilus perfect in its grace,
clear as crystal but for the frostwork of nautilus pat-
terns all over its surface. It was a new experiment in
form for a winged ship of the air, and as I stood the
wings were added and the engines put on board. The
navigators embarked ; a smaller quadrant of the dome
crashed aside; and out by the aperture floated this
huge air-bubble rainbow-lustrous in the sun.
Thyriel led me to the vacant space whence the air-
ship had been launched; and there I was shown how
powerful magnets made the snow-storm sweep so rapidly
downwards and held the irelium dust in position, once
it had taken shape. Then the alternate floors were
exhibited to me, one emanating heat which melted the
new structure into a permanency, and another that re-
duced the temperature below freezing-point and com-
pleted the architectural process by chilling the metal.
There were other floors easy of substitution by means
of leverage and the application of great force; as one was
withdrawn, another was run into its place. One was
suited for one chemical process, another for another.
A second set were for applying to the walls of the new
Structure different forms or grades of electricity. A
Oolorefa 167
third set could infuse into them various kinds of con-
creting fluids to make them cohere when the heating
and chilling process was likely to fail. This was the
great Ooloran that I had come to see, and only the
most skilled musician and architect was allowed to sit
down at the key-board.
In order to show me the part that music took in this
swift architecture, I was led round the circle of sub-
chapels, that I had seen surrounding the great dome.
In these were employed the various draughtsmen of
Oolorefa. In the first we entered the experimenter was
engaged in seeking the most beautiful form for a new
mansion which was to be placed up amongst the snows
of Lilaroma; it would have to withstand great gusts of
wind and at times heavy drifts of snow; it would also
have to bear a variety of high temperatures within in
order to protect the dwellers from the bitterness of the
night. The building was meant for those who had to
watch the storm-cone and keep it in perfect working
order. The draughtsman was using a miniature Ool-
oran, and deftly sounding various musical notes, and
sometimes songs into its irelium dust whirlwind; but
there was always one predominating note, meant to in-
troduce into each experiment a feature that had been
before tested and found suitable. He fixed his experi-
ments by means of his small movable floors, and then
placed the resulting forms in order along a shelf, attach-
ing to each the score of music which had produced it.
It was like a collection of toy observatories. Within
a neighbouring compartment of like transparent walls
another artisan submitted each of the models to the in-
fluences of stress and strain, of heat and cold, of snow
pressure and tornado violence that the ultimate and
1 68 Limanora
Climbed to the heat, another to the severe cold, a third
to an avalanche from above, a fourth to a gust of wind.
He marked the flaw in each and the influence that had
brought it out, and handed the model back to the
draughtsman, who at once corrected the note or notes
in the score of music which symbolised the flaw.
When the result of the experimentation was complete,
the score of the music and the miniature fabric were
sent to the central dome; and in less than an hour the
huge mansion was on its winged raft speeding towards
its destination far up the great mountain-slope.
I was led through the whole series of experimenting
chapels; in each was there a miniature sonarchitect pro-
ducing test forms for special purposes under the skilled
hands of creative workmen and their pupils. In most
of them new designs were being produced for private
houses; for of these was needed the greatest variety,
as each islander had his home renewed so frequently.
I could not have conceived that so many different
forms could be created for the same purpose; indeed
the number seemed to be limited only by the possible
combination of notes of music and the need of adapting
each design to habitation and the habits of the dwell-
ers. The skill of the artist lay in the selection of the
proper forms out of the multitude he daily evolved, and
in their adaptation to the necessities of Limanoran life.
It was in these designs that the younger members of
the architect families were engaged ; thus they learned
their art and developed their creative instincts.
Under some cupolas which we visited we found ex-
periments on new designs for the large public buildings,
and to these the wisest members of the families were
applying their century-tried skill. As we approached
any such chapel, we could hear the most elaborate and
Oolorefa 169
entrancing music, for the design in such cases was
labyrinthine, and needed the noblest artistic faculties
to select and develop it. The executive musical talent
displayed and the talent of extemporaneous composi-
tion and modification would have been called genius in
European communities; but this people had no word
corresponding to the quicksand of meaning this word
covers in Christendom. They knew the origin and
growth of each faculty, even when exceptionally de-
veloped, too well to attribute it to an indefinable some-
thing which nature had somehow conferred upon a
chance-chosen individual. They knew as exactly the
causes that produced given effects in the human system
as they could calculate the forces of the inanimate
world, and -had no belief in the power of nature to give
to human work by some caprice more value than it
deserved and that deranged all calculation. This
criticism I brought down on me from my guide when I
expressed amazement at the beauty of the music and the
resulting design in one chapel, and attempted to trans-
late the word "genius" into Limanoran. Such ex-
pressions, he persuaded me, are but the half-articulate
escape-valves of wide-mouthed ignorance; they mean
no more than a confession of blindness and incapacity,
and should be rapidly rejected by every progressive
civilisation. The musical and designing power of this
particular Limanoran belonged to most in his family
of his own age, and was merely the stage the art of
sonarchitecture had reached in its development on the
island. Wherever a nature especially adapted to the
double art was found it was imported into the family
to reinforce it.
In spite of the dissertation, I could not but listen,
1 70 Limanora
my eyes were riveted on the growing design within
the receiver of the Ooloran. Yet when finished
and tested it was found inadequate to the artist's new
conception of the utilities of the ultimate edifice. It
was shaken again into dust before I left the workman,
and its faults were noted and corrected in the score of
music which he had before him. He had been years
on this single design, which he had been moulding and
improving every day; and he hoped soon to find a
form that would be strikingly new and in every feature
adapted to the purpose of the building.
I could well understand now that the new Oomalefa
was no work of magic; but I was still unable to see
how its vast proportions could have been shifted from
its place of fabrication to its ultimate site. Thyriel
led me to a new structure which had just issued from
the central sonarchitect ; and the master- workman bade
me lean upon it; huge though it was, it shifted before
my weight and I fell. It was as light as if made of
silk, and we two could lift it from the floor. This ex-
plained the ease of rafting the great edifices through the
air; but how did they resist the winds that blew, or
the impact of wave and storm ? I was led to a wall of
Oolorefa itself; and I was bidden to raise one low
parapet of it ; not the application of my greatest
strength could move it. My guide then waved what
seemed to be a magnet above it, and bade me try again ;
it rose in my hands and my muscular effort landed me
on my back. He showed me how the foundations of
their buildings were powerful magnets, and how the
fabric would be torn to pieces before it could be hoisted
off them unless an equally powerful magnet was ap-
plied in another direction. I now understood the
strength of their structures before winds and the
Oolorefa 171
rapid disappearance of Oomalefa after the earth-
quake.
But I had seen only one department of Oolorefa, that
which consummated the work of the rest. One branch
of the sonarchitect families was specially charged with
experimentation on the materials for building. Ire-
lium was the general name for the metallic combination
of elements best suited to the state of civilisation they
had reached; but there were innumerable modifica-
tions and grades of it, and there were more being
discovered every day. We entered one magnificent
building, and there found a dozen or more workmen,
each isolated in a transparent chamber and busy with
some combination of irelium and one or other of the
stellar metals. Every star or series of stars had its
own predominant and characteristic element or amal-
gam of elements; and it was a main duty of one
of the chemical families of the island to examine every
star for its new element and to find something cor-
responding to it in terrene matter. This section of
the people studied with the most anxious care the pro-
ducts and the results of the leomorans; they visited
almost hourly the mouths of the lava wells and watched
the spectroscopic recorders of the fumes that rose out
of them; for they seldom failed to find at one time or
another some constituent of the interior of the earth cor-
responding to any new stellar element or metal recently
discovered. Whenever it was found in any leomoran
a chamber for its deposition was constructed and the
clirolan was specially adapted to the preservation of
all of it that issued out of the bowels of the earth.
These new metallic constituents were called by the
name of the stars in which they predominated, and were
172 Limanora
to be tested for structural utilities. It was thus irelium
had been discovered, and thus they hoped to find ma-
terials still more plastic to their purposes. Already
they had so modified their new metal bj' amalgamation
with other stellar metals that they had fitted it to func-
tions no metal had served before; it could be made
flexible or tough, light or heavy, transparent or opaque,
malleable or brittle, soluble before heat or water or
electricity, or resistent to any or all of them; it was
difiicult to say what quality they could not impart to
it; and here I could see the workmen testing new com-
binations in order to find new qualities or new grades
of a quality already found. I stood and watched one
who was trying an amalgam of a new stellar metat
called vanelium with gold; he had already attempted
to combine it with iron, silver, copper, irelium, and
found it in each case either impossible or useless; but
the reactions had pointed him to gold as its natural
ally; and now, having found the two combine with
ease, he was exhausting the various possibilities of
combination in different proportions, and after submit-
ting the new amalgam to his tests, was recording the
results. It gave a marvellous toughness and elasticity
to gold, so that, when beaten thin enough for a breath
to raise it in the air, it could not be torn except by
sudden and great mechanical force. Another workman
near him was testing the effect of electricity on the
various grades of the new amalgam and recording the
results minutely. In each of the crystal chambers
there were at hand supplies of all the forms of energy
that might be needed, such as heat, cold, pressure,
electricity. Each workman was isolated in order that
the elements he used might not interfere with the ex-
periments of his neighbour; but his workshop was
Oolorefa i tz
transparent, that he might beckon for help at any mo-
ment, or exhibit to his fellows the result of any experi-
ment without modifying the conditions or breaking the
continuity.
A third branch of these families dealt with the
adaptation of the new amalgams to the various struc-
tural necessities of the community; they found out
which form or grade would resist the disintegrating
influence or the power of water or of electric force;
they tested what shape would best suit each grade,
solid or hollow, cylindrical or spheral, cubic or rec-
tangular, thin or thick, curved or rectilinear. Another
branch devoted itself to the means of making the
various metals or amalgams cohere either temporarily
or permanently. A fifth studied the adaptation of the
new discoveries to tools and machines and to the in-
vention of new mechanical forms that would bring out
their greatest utilities. To go through all the depart-
ments of this vast architectural workshop would need
a week's rehearsal. To my first view it seemed be-
wildering in its complexity of specialisation; but after
closer acquaintance it became simplicity itself, in fact
the only plan that nature itself could have pointed but.
CHAPTER XIII
THE IvH.ARAN
HAVING finished our survey of Oolorefa, my mind
returned to the observatory for I,ilaroma, which
I had seen growing in miniature under the modeller's
hand and music. It seemed to me a strange romance
that citizens of this beautiful island lived amid ever-
lasting snow and ice tens of thousands of feet above
their fellows. How could those who were accustomed
to the conditions and privileges I saw around me bring
themselves to surrender it all and live the lives of
hermits amid antarctic rigours? Thyriel reminded me
of the glacial cold of the southern land from which
their ancestry had come; but this did not wholly
satisfy me. The long centuries of life in a new zone
had changed their powers and tastes, and it must be a
great sacrifice to live in a climate so different as was
the glacier region of a mountain. My curiosity was
roused, and I resolved to observe and know for myself
at the earliest opportunity. I could see the observa-
tory now perched on the gleaming shoulder of the
mountain above the circle of the storm-cone, and every
day I turned my ey^ upwards I grew more eager to
inquire into the conditions of life in so different a
temperature.
174
The Lilaran 175
It happened that the next department of the civilisa-
tion of the island that had to be studied by me in our
educational development was Lilarie, or the science of
island-security. We were handed over to one who be-
longed to the lyilamo, or families specially absorbed in
this section of practical knowledge, and were told to
choose our mode of ascent, car flight or wing flight,
or either of the two instantaneous methods of transit.
We preferred one of the two last, so he decided on the
wire-line or aerial method for our first ascent. We
were enclosed in a casing, shaped like a shuttle and
rounded and sharpened to a point at each end; it lay
slightly inclined on a close web of wires, which sloped
up to the mountain-top. The door was closed and
made secure, but, as our shuttle car was made of trans-
parent irelium, we could see on all sides. It was then
drawn slightly upwards into a complete enclosure of
wires, each of which touched it at some point. When
our guide saw that we were all ready, he pressed a
button, and we shot up at incredible speed. The whole
sky and earth and sea fell from us in an instant. I
closed my eyes in alarm. No sooner had I done so
than the whizzing sound which accompanied our flight
ceased and in a moment we were at our destination,
close to the peak of Lilaroma. Our shuttle car slid
into another groove and rested; the door opened, and
I stood amid the eternal snows. I could see the great
buildings of Rimla and Oomalefa and Oolorefa like
minute soap-bubbles gleaming in the sun far below.
We had travelled these tens of thousands of feet with
the ease and .swiftness of lightning; for it had indeed
been the lightning that had borne us up. Along this
cylinder of wires so great an electric power could be
sent that it seemed to undo the force of gravitation.
1 76 Limanora
Distance was almost annihilated by this mode of transit.
It outdistanced sound, if not light too, in its magic
motion.
As soon as I began to reflect, I was astounded to
find the cold not merely bearable, but deprived of its
bitter penetrativeness. My heart bounded with ex-
hilaration; every tissue of my body seemed elastic and
full of spring. I could account for these sensations by
the atmosphere of these heights, but how was I to
explain the mild temperature of this snow region ?
When puzzling over the problem, I began to notice a
haze of half-glowing light like the shimmer of heat
over the surface of the earth at blazing noon. It
seemed at first to be an optical illusion coming, I
thought, from the suddenness of my transference from
the plain to such a height, but its unsteady gleam
moved so uniformly that I soon saw it was outside of
me. Yet it did not intercept my view of the snow and
ice around. They fascinated me by their splendour of
whiteness, but there was a warmth, a pallid glow over
them that was quite unwonted. Our guide felt my
mental interrogation, and pointed out that we had
stepped from the shuttle car on to a movable platform,
which would soon bring us to the observatory; over
this platform was an electric covering, that protected
us from the outer air and radiated heat in all direc-
tions. He showed us the snow melting on all sides of
our platform in form corresponding to it, and, as it
moved along the steep, the dark honeycombed square
of snow moved with us. There was above and on
every side of us an electric field produced by unseen
circuits of wires; and these fields gave out heat falling
short of light.
This was how they modified the climate up in
The Lilaran 177
these glacial regions and made it even sweeter and
healthier than the purified atmosphere of the I/ima-
noran plateaux below. They had done much for the
climate of the lower levels; by daily casting their elec-
tric shuttles through the atmosphere they brought its
impurities to the earth, its particles of dust and minute
living organisms; but as more of these crowded in again
from the outlying regions of air, the electric shuttles
would have to ply ceaselessly in all directions in order
to keep the lower strata pure. In those mountain
altitudes the air was naturally sterilised to a large ex-
tent; few organisms could persist in so keen a medium;
and the constant use of electric walls and roof for
modifying the bitterness of the cold swept every trace
of bacterial life into the snow. Hence the purity of
the air we breathed up there and the buoyancy of the
soul. The body seemed no clog upon the spiritual
functions, and the magnetism that came from the
heavenly bodies uniting with that of the earth had free
play upon our minds, stimulating them to lofty flight.
I no longer wondered why the lyilamo had no aver-
sion to life at this altitude. They passionately loved
it. It was, indeed, being drunk without wine, without
self-abandonment, without waste of tissue.
They kept strict rein on this intoxication, ethereal
though it was; for, like all their race, they had
severe practical issues before them. Daily each of
them returned to the less volatile and less pure air of
the lower levels in order to check excess of buoyancy
and to reinforce the graver purposes of life by consulta-
tion with the elders and wise men. They had in their
hands an important phase of the well-being and con-
tinuance of their race. They had all the foes of human
life, as it existed amongst the Limanorans, to fight off,
1 78 Limanora
whether seen or unseen. The tornadoes that swept
across these subtropical regions, the climatic strata
that drifted from other lands or realms of space, the
bacterial swarms bringing plague in their train, the
lower-planed human life which might swoop down on
their shores from the archipelago around them, — all
these had to be watched and directed past lyimanora.
Any one of these evils might in a few hours or days
sweep out the civilisation that had taken long centuries
to develop and leave them all their steps to retrace.
Eye-tense vigilance was needed to watch for any sign
of their approach, and the keenest invention to prevent
their advance when observed.
I had not long to wait for evidences of the great ser-
vices the Lilamo did to their country. Thyriel and I
were led by our guide into the various divisions of the
observatory. We inspected the innumerable testing
and controlling machines without fully understanding
their intricate and often subtle arrangements. Had
we not been acquainted with Rimla and Oomalefa
and Oolorefa, we should have been bewildered or even
awestruck. As it was we were amazed at the refine-
ment of purpose in the apparatus, approaching almost
to human intelligence; but we saw that a mere novice
would have deranged most of it, so nice were the ad-
justments.
Our attention had been especially arrested by the
electric indicator or tremolan. It contained a complete
chart of the electric variations of every point of the
island throughout every day in the year. This had
been compiled and drawn up from the observations of
several centuries, and marked the differences between
periodical and temporary, regional and narrowly local,
terrestrial and planetary variations. Every day the in-
The Lilaran 179
strument was set like a clock to all the electric changes
which they expected to occur periodically on that day.
Each of these, indicated at every point of the map, re-
presented an electrically uniform locality of the island
with which it was connected. The superintendent of
the tremolan for any section of the day specially studied
all the unclassified variations which had occurred at the
corresponding hour of the same day and period of time.
He knew every change in the position of the earth or
in the movements of the stars that might affect the
electricity of the atmosphere at any moment during his
watch. Along with him there was a sky-watcher, who
used one of their marvellous reducers of distance and
magnifiers to scan the sky and the whole horizon, and
reported every new appearance which broke the uni-
formity of the sky-line. In an adjoining chamber with
transparent partitions a third observer was stationed
with his ear at a makro-mikrakoust or vamolan, that
gathered in the slightest sounds at the distance of even
hundreds of miles and magnified them for the listening
sense applied to it; it also indicated approximately the
distance of the source of the sound by an automatic
calculator. This was a kind of eavesdropper that
could pick up whispers on the orb of the earth, just as
their astronomical instruments could catch the faintest
gleam in space myriads of miles beyond the scope of the
eye. In another crystal-walled apartment stood a
fourth watcher, who used an instrument that was
to his electric sense what the telescope is to the
eye and their vamolan was to their ear. With this
idrolan he swept the sky for new and unclassified
electric impulses; and the faintest and most distant
indication, quite unrecognisable by his unaided sense,
H.fnlrl- at thp samp time
i/-\iicQn
i8o Limanora
the distance of the source was roughly measured and
indicated.
This was by far the most attractive group of chambers
for us. Not only could we test the wonderful instru-
ments for ourselves; but we could examine by aid of
magnifiers the graphic results of their observations
automatically recorded as if by photography. We
could minutely study the flight of sea birds not visible
to the naked eye. The babel of sounds that went on
in the cities of the archipelago quite beneath the hori-
zon we could hear like a great roar beside us when we
placed the sonoscripts in the sound-magnifier; and with
the aid of its analyst we could unravel the sounds by
repeating them slowly. Though I had not my
electric sense sufiicieutly developed to feel the differ-
ences in the starry impulses when the electrographs
were placed in the electro-magnifier, I could distin-
guish their differing degrees of force, and I could see
how much Thyriel appreciated the fine shades of variety
in the impulses.
We were engaged in testing the electric records, when
we could see the observer of the tremolan bustling from
table to table and map to map, whilst his pupil watched
the indicator. His excitement spread into the adjoin-
ing chambers, and their occupants, leaving their instru-
ments to assistants, came to his aid. There was an
inexplicable electric disturbance on the north-east
shore of the island; the field in that direction was
agitated. They ran to the idrolan and turned it to the
north-east; at once they knew that some seven or eight
hundred miles off there was advancing at a rapid rate a
great wave of electric disturbance. We all recognised
a growing sultriness of heat in the profound calm of
the atmosphere even at those icy heights. No time
The Lilaran i8i
was to be lost. All the members of the I^ilamo were
called up, and in a few minutes were assembled in the
observatory.
It was resolved to turn the whole force available in
the island into the storm-cone, and especially into that
part of it which could shoot masses and streamers of
electric energy out to great distances in the atmo-
sphere. Other indications of an approaching tornado
soon appeared. The great telescope discovered a vast
cloud of birds on the horizon, and the sea greatly
agitated by shoals of fish beneath them. The vamolan
analysed the sounds made by the birds and revealed
that they were not all of one species; sea birds small
and great were predominant; but there was no lack of
land birds, insect-eaters chiefly, and a few great flesh-
eaters, vultures, hawks, and falcons. The Lilamo
knew in a moment what this meant. Myriads of
microbes were afloat in the air in front of the storm,
and the sky in the van of the cloud of birds was
obscured by the mass of insect life battening on the
unseen plague. The fish had gathered to eat the
clotted life that dropped into the ocean, and the sea
birds had assembled in pursuit of the fish. It was a
striking sight, this great moving internecine slaughter
and feast. Seated at a clevamolan, or combination of
telescope and makrakoust, we were present at the
scene, though hundreds of miles off. We could see
the swoop of the vultures down on the land birds, too
busy with their banquet of insects to foresee their own
fate, the water boiling with the leap of the fish and the
dive of the 'sea birds, and the air turbid with the flash
and glimmer of wings; at the same time we could hear
the war of jubilance and dismay, the wild cry of fore-
■1^ r,rtA fVio afill Tj7ilrl(ir HpfltVi-isViripk • and
1 82 Limanora
round and through the clangour like an atmosphere
moved the dull hum of happy glutted insect life. It
sickened us and we had to cover our eyes and ears to
shut out the carnage. We had forgotten that we had
been using the clevamolan, and were glad to find that
we could leave it and return to the ordinary powers of
our senses; there was a speck on the horizon, which
might be a boat at sea for anything our eyes could
make out; whilst to our hearing there was the pro-
foundest calm.
Everything was ready for the concentration of our
millions of horse-power in the direction of the north-
east, when a new but by no means unexpected phase
of the phenomenon occurred. Word came up from the
north-east shore that a plague had broken out amongst
the dwellers in the district, and that the medical wise
men had been summoned to their help. The I^ilamo
had already given warning that something of this kind
might be expected in that quarter, and the physicians
were by this time removing all the Limanorans in the
north-east to Oomalefa. So dense a cloud of insects
was not there without the attraction of superfluous
bacterial life. Not always was a tornado thus heralded
and vanguarded by a winged army, but when it was,
it meant the migration under magnetic impulse of
clirolanic plague-swarms from some favourite breeding
area.
As soon as it was thus known that the bacterial
couriers of the storm had reached the shores of I/ima-
nora, the electric forces of the lilaran were brought
into play, and we could see lightnings belch forth which
seemed to make the north-east atmosphere and ocean
glow. Swiftly the shoals of fish were gathered close to
the bastions of the coast, for masses of insects were fall-
The Lilaran 183
ing every moment into the water. Soon we could see
our lightnings reach as far as the insect darkness and
the bird cloud. The air cleared and the surface of the
sea was covered with death . Away tothewest screamed
and shrieked the survivors of the winged army. Then
could we see the pitchy midnight of the coming tempest
moving stealthily towards us; and its heralds howled
and shrieked through every crevice of our mansion.
It was bearing right on lyilaroma.
How could that battering-ram of heaven's fury be
turned aside or evaded ? It seemed to me that nothing
but death and destruction were before us. I had al-
ready seen a tropical cyclone level a gigantic forest
clean as a mower would clear his swath in his breast-
high corn. What could man do in presence of so ter-
rific a force but hide in holes of the rocks? The
thought of those noble buildings levelled with the dust
mingled sadness with my fear and shook all cowardice
from it. What was the immolation of animal exist-
ence which I had just witnessed compared to the de-
struction of all this people had done ? I felt as if the
torch of the world's salvation were about to be extin-
guished.
There was no sadness or languid inaction of despair
about the other inmates of the observatory. All was
bustle and joyous eflFort for a time as in veterans quiver-
ing with the passion of battle. Every man had his
duty and place; and every woman was there, too, in the
ranks of champions. We could now see the nucleus
of the storm just above the horizon, a mass raven-black.
At once the whole power of the island was concen-
trated in the electric charge of the lilaran ; and a long
tongue of flame shot straight for the dense cloud. As
if hv tnacriV tVif^ wVinlp atmosohere was in a moment
1 84 Limanora
ablaze with lightnings. The sea was cloven into bil-
lows of raging foam, and seemed itself to aid in the
hellish pyrotechny. It shot forth great tongues of
purple flame, yet fled with reared crest from the strokes
of the storm-flail. Slowly the lilaran moved its light-
ning-thrust away to the east. Then half the island
power was put into the blast of the storm-cone; and
we could see the war of elements and the thunderous
scowl of the tempest shift round the circle of the hori-
zon, instead of bearing down on us. For hours the
roar of the lilaran went on. The edge of the tornado
struck us, and the building shook and swayed. Hail
pelted its sides; rain and snow blinded our outlook;
we could .see not one inch outside for the gloom. Yet
within, all was radiant and calm. They knew that the
centre of the tornado had passed many miles to the
east, and that its trailing skirts could do no harm to
anything in the island. Even if it had come straight
on Lilaroma, they had given a vent to its fury so many
leagues out to sea that its force would have been largely
spent before it reached the shore. It was a yearly
occurrence, this throttling of a tornado from the
tropics; for these great electric disturbances made
straight for the loftiest peak within their reach, drawn
by their polar complement, the masses of electric
energy which played within the heart of I,ilaroma.
One of the ordinary duties of the I,ilamo was to milk
the great mountain of its electricity, in order that it
should offer less attraction to cloud and storm. Every
night, especially during the season of tempests, I could
hear the roar of the energy out of the earth, and, if I
looked up to the shoulders of the mountain, I could
see at a hundred points the purple streamers flicker in
the wind like living, moving flame-flowers growing
The Lilaran 185
out of the soil. When needed, this escaping energy
was collected and sent down to Rimla for storage and
was another of the numerous sources of power that that
treasury of force drew upon.
When the tornado had passed and left its huge con-
tribution to the snows of the peak, the lilaran was
stopped, and the electric energy used in it was rapidly
run over the white slopes that now obliterated every
trace of the great groove and railway on which the
storm-cone moved. In a few minutes the outline ap-
peared, and soon the whole circlet was cleared of its
encumbering snows. So the weight that pressed on
the roofs of the observatory and the drifts that kept the
light from its walls melted before the electric snow-
plough. The storm had not vanished an hour before
all on the peak of Lilaroma was as it had been when
we arrived, except for the greater purity of the snow
on its shoulders. Beneath, the brush of the tempest
had swept out all traces of the plague that the physi-
cians had not got rid of, and the atmosphere was
clearer ani more exhilarating.
So calmly and fearlessly had the whole danger been
met that there had even been leisure in the midst of the
turmoil to discuss this great waste of natural power.
It took them as many days as the tornado lasted hours
to generate and store in Rimla all this energy which
was now falling useless, or rather mischievous, upon
the face of the ocean. Could they not yoke the cyclone
as they had yoked the billows and the winds, the rivers
and the snows, the lightnings and the central fires of
the earth ? There was nothing impossible to a peo-
ple who had tamed the raging of the volcano and the
earthquake. The difficulty was the very greatness of
the force. Any machinery they might erect would be
1 86 Limanora
trampled to pieces by the brute power of the giant
they yoked. Here was a problem worthy of their
most imaginative men, of their most inventive faculties.
Not a year had passed before a trial was made, and
within a decade the machinery was complete for storing
the energy of the tempests. An immense cave was
hollowed out in the rocks of I^ilaroma, and its mouth
was extended out into the ocean for miles by means of
lava bastions. In it was placed enough of the alloy
called labramor, or electricity sponge, to take in trillions
of horse-power of electric force. At first cables con-
taining millions of wires were floated out towards the
coming tornado and electric fields were raised in the air
to tap the energy of the blackness. This was con-
tinued afterwards to some extent; but it was found
that, if only the clouds were electrically tapped, most
of the current transmitted itself to the receivers in the
cave by means of the water of the ocean. It was thus
unnecessary to float out towards the storm more than
one cable, so binding to the shore a great raft which held
up many labrolans or electricity milkers towards the
blackening sky. They acknowledged that they lost by
this water-transmission much of the energy emitted
from the clouds; for the ocean bore it away in all direc-
tions; but they got as much of it as they needed to
fill their storehouse, and they killed the cloud monster;
at least it floated away across the horizon blowing a
mere gale that could do no havoc except upon the
careless and unforethinking.
One of the most singular effects of this new contriv-
ance was to rid the sea in the neighbourhood of the
island of its teeming life and to precipitate to the bot-
tom the matter that floated in the water. For weeks
after, we could see the rocks or streaming weeds in the
The Lilaran 187
depths as clearly as if it were an ocean of air. Its
emerald or azure had vanished, and white light poured
down into the hitherto unfathomed hollows and val-
leys. There could we see the dead denizens sway idly
with the forests of marine vegetation and here and
there the bulk of some monster lay tangled in the herb-
age. Only by degrees and after some months did the
colour and opacity return to the waves and the myriad
life stream from other regions into the void. The cur-
rents that swept past the coasts bore down the sus-
pended particles from other seas; and with them came
new fish and their parasites.
Until these came a new danger to the health of Lim-
anora threatened. A few days after the tornado, the
precipitated organisms began to rise to the surface of
the water and underneath the hot sun to form breeding-
grounds for the dangerous microbes of the air. Up
against the bastions of rock beat the stench of the
living death. A plague threatened for a brief time;
but they were not a people to remain passive in pres-
ence of such a danger, even though they could easily
prevent its worst results by remedial measures. They
sank the dead organic masses again by means of a
charge of electricity, and then the deeper currents that
brushed their shores swept the corruption into the
great valleys of the ocean-bed, there to be embalmed
for geological ages hence.
They regretted that they should be the instruments
of this great waste of life before it had fulfilled the pur-
pose of its stage of development; but their regret was
tempered by the thought that it was a low and feeble
stage, that an infinity of such existence would not
weigh in the balance with one day's advance of a
clMcrlo T it-nonr»i-oti onrl frViat fhf^ f^nf^rcrv «p1" frpf* hv f"his
1 88 Limanora
wholesale dissolution of organisms was still ready for
other embodiments in the universe. The worst effect
they feared was upon their own natures; to destroy life
or deal with it frivolously was one of the worst offences
against their humanity, for it introduced into the mind
a brutalising element. Respect for life in all its forms
was one of the truest tests of a civilisation, they held.
And the lyilamo were, almost as much as the physi-
cians, imbued with reverence for human life and with the
sense of the importance of preserving, it and giving it
the longest opportunity in the individual to gain its
highest possibility. They had to protect their race
from all external foes. They had therefore to study
climatic changes and watch the sanitary conditions of
the island. Sanitatioh meant primarily the expulsion
of all hostile clirolanic life and the prevention of all
conditions that would attract it or form its breeding-
ground. They were especially interested in the mag-
netic and electric peculiarities of Limanora and of the
section of the globe in which they lived; for these
affected not only the health and spirits of the people,
but the amount of minute life that harboured in the
earth or floated in the atmosphere. They could by
an increase of these elements rid an unwholesome dis-
trict of its unhealthy conditions; and yet the in-
habitants of it could not remain whilst the process of
purification was going on. Too much magnetism or
electricity in the earth or air would endanger the
nervous balance of the human frame. The test in-
struments in the lava wells were frequently examined
to find the electric state of any section of the island;
and one central electrometer was constantly recording
the electric state of the atmosphere in all parts of it.
Thus were they able to recharge by means of their
The Lilaran 189
apparatus whatever localities were found defective, and
tap those that had a superfluity; and over the country
at night the flame-like streamers lit up the darkness
here and there. But this occurred at rare intervals, for
it was only in certain conditions of the sun that the
earth sponged up more electricity than was good for
the highest life upon its surface.
The storm-cone as a rule was enough for sanitation.
By its wind force it could drift all dangerous clouds of
moisture or of bacterial life past Limanora. By its
electric-darting powers the heart could be squeezed out
of storms before they struck the shores. It regu-
lated the rainfall, depositing the contents of clouds by
day far out upon the sea and by night upon the thirst-
ing land. Sultry blacknesses that would otherwise
float past with only stifling effect were tapped, first
for their electricity and then for their rain. Storms of
dust that now and again darkened over the circle of
fog could be precipitated into the ocean partly by
electricity, partly by the blasts of the storm-cone.
The atmosphere was kept singularly pure and free
from deleterious germs or particles, and few nights
passed without a drenching shower cleansing the whole
lower portion of the island. The peak of I^ilaroma
drew to it like a magnet all the masses of moisture that
collected within many hundred miles of it; and a lit-
tle manipulation would break these up into refreshing
night showers that swept its slopes and the plateaux
and levels below; and, in order to prevent the de-
structive floods that this might produce in the rivers,
the shoulders of the mountain and its deep valleys
bristled with great forests which sponged up the falling
moisture and let it down gently from hour to hour into
the bastioned channels.
1 90 Limanora
Climate was to this people as much a matter of man-
agement as food and its production. They could
modify it to fit any change in the conditions or neces-
sities or purposes of life. To be at the mercy of the
forces of nature was a state of existence in what they
now considered their barbarous past. It was only the
unforeseen that had them at a disadvantage; and the
uuforeseen was to them now only the cosmic. As
the planetary system shifted through space, it had to
encounter conditions and modes and degrees of energy
and life that nothing short of omniscience could antici-
pate; but they were beginning to master the secret
of many of those unexpected changes of condition.
The astro-sciential families had been classifying for
centuries the symptoms that accompanied these in the
appearance of the sun or of one or other of the planets.
With their innumerable delicate instruments for record-
ing and analysing the electric, magnetic, luminous, and
heat- vaporous state of distant space, they could see afar
off the beginnings of cosmic disturbances and anticipate
their ultimate direction; and in many cases they could
guard Limanora against the more patent and destruc-
tive effects of magnetic and electric storms and of great
waves of heat or light.
Yet there was much to master in the new cosmic
conditions that from time to time beset the earth or the
planetary system. Some seemed to arise so suddenly
that no observation could have anticipated them. Es-
pecially was this the case with living drift, into shoals
of which the universe struck, the spawn of undeveloped
worlds. Hence came new diseases so widespread as to
be plagues'. These generally evaded the fine instru-
ments of the astro-scientist, till they had reached the
very atmosphere of the earth; for in the interstellar
The Lilaran
191
spaces they led so meagre a life and were spread so
thinly and widely that they scarcely intercepted the
light or other forms of energy from the sun or other
systems. Yet the imaginative families and the inven-
tors were struggling towards some more delicate in-
strument, which would observe and record the presence
of interstellar material life.
CHAPTER XIV
CHOKTROO
THE Ivilamo were usually occupied in these sanitary
duties, but at times the other section of their de-
fence of I,imanora claimed their attention. I had had
good reason to know the force of the lilaran, or storm-
cone, in my attempt to arrive in the island. Had it not
been decided to permit our entrance, our perseverance
would have failed of the attainment of our object.
I was soon to witness a marvellous display of the
defensive and repulsive pov^ers of the storm-cone. For
some years after the first period of my novitiate and my
partial admission to privileges as a citizen with which
this period ended, there had been observed throughout
the archipelago a movement which spread with con-
siderable rapidity. It was one of the amusements of
the lyimanorans to watch the comedy of life upon the
other islands through the idrovamolan, or instrument
for distance seeing and hearing, which they had fixed
high up the mountain. On a floating strip of ire-
lium, that could be projected far into the sky, scenes
beneath the horizon could be mirrored and watched
through this instrument and through other instruments
for reducing distance. The sounds, too, that rose from
the scene re-echoed from the under-surface of the float-
192
Choktroo 193
ing mirror, and could be magnified by the makrakous-
tic part of the idrovamolan into their original volume.
A rarer and more difficult instrument was one which
combined with this power of seeing and hearing at a
great distance that of noting the magnetism working
in a community even under the horizon.
Recently they had found that they could dispense
with the floating mirror and reflector. The ether was
their transmitter of all they wished to see or hear at a
distance. Through it passed electric waves from even
immeasurable distances, whilst the sky itself formed a
sufficiently complete mirror for reflecting whatever was
occurring under the horizon. By recent discoveries
and inventions they were enabled to transform electric
impulses into the scene or sound that gave them out
into the surrounding air. Their new instruments
would tap the occurrences at any point on any given
line or in any given direction. They were now inde-
pendent of any artificial medium for their knowledge
of the outside world. The receivers of their new idro-
vamolan were every moment recording and analysing
whatsoever occurred along the line in which it was
directed; and its transformers were constantly trans-
lating the electric records into the forms or sounds
which originally sent out the impulses; it was so con-
structed as to prevent the confusion of waves that came
from different points on the route, for it moved with
the swiftness of light or, if required, with that of
electricity. These new modifications gave them hope
that they would soon be able to see and hear much
of what goes on in universes which, though invisible,
yet transmit luminous and electric waves sufficiently
strong to affect their telescopic instruments, and that
the straggling rays of light or electricity might be
194 Limanora
transformed into the scenes and sounds which gave
them birth.
As it was, the I^imanorans were able to watch all that
was going on in the islands around them. During
their leisure hours, when it was their duty as well as
their pleasure to relax the mind, they would sit and
observe the life of what they called their menagerie.
To them, indeed, the whirling eddy of existence with
its ambitions and crimes, its luxury and misery, in the
archipelago around seemed little more than the antics
of monkeys or the internecine appetites of wild beasts.
The scenes were generally amusing in the ape-like
vanities and mimicries they exhibited. Sometimes
they were offensive and even repulsive in their filth
or brutalities. How beings formed like themselves
could endure the grossness of their luxuries and the
falsity and hollowness of their most admired social dis-
plays was to them a bewildering problem. Even the
best of these islanders were as far behind the Lima-
norans in true human qualities as they thought them-
selves in advance of apes. The daily observation of
these creatures so humanly endowed and yet so foul
and blind in act was often too much to bear for any
length of time; the most repulsive scenes were those
of what was considered high life, of courts and courtly
circles, of rulers and leaders of act and thought.
" Who can bear the horror of their intrigues and hypo-
crisies, their cruel trampling of the fallen, their hideous
fawning on the successful, their insolent pride and in-
tolerance of the weak ! " I often heard exclamations
like this from the lips of the watchers as they turned
away from the idrovamolan with a shudder. The
combination of ape and bully, of reptile and vapourer
was, in the thoughts of this people, the lowest depth to
Choktroo 195
which human nature could fall; and it was the usual
and most envied form in the high social hfe of most of
these islands. The barbarism and ignorance of the
poor and downtrodden marked a less retrograde phase
of humanity. The sight of the posturings and scrap-
ings, the insolence and spaniel manners of the higher
classes served every day to deepen the horror of exile
and to frighten every lyimauoran from anything that
would lead even to the slightest retrogression. Had it
not been for this wholesome effect upon their minds,
they would have long ago abandoned the custom of
watching this beast spectacle of retrograde and showy
civilisation, so much pain mingled with their amuse-
ment at it. They knew that their pity was vain ; for
it would take unremitting effort for thousands of years
to raise these peoples to the Limanoran level, if the
Ivimanoran missionaries had not in the meantime been
dragged down to the lower level ; and these thousands
of years could be better spent in attaining higher
and higher ideals in their own life. The task, they
knew, was as hopeless as if these descendants of their
degenerate exiles should attempt to drag the lower
animals up to their stage of human development, and
this irremediable nature of their state added to the pain
of the observers.
Had the habit of watching the comedy of their
menagerie been given up, the lyilamo would have still
had to observe the enactment of history in the sur-
rounding islands. It was part of their duty of defence
to anticipate all armaments against Limanora; and
they had discovered that there was unusual excitement
amongst the various peoples since the arrival of the
Daydream in their waters. It was evident that this
formed an epoch in the history of the archipelago. The
1 9^ Limanora
lyilamo reported the movements of the portentous
smoke-pennoned ship which sailed in the teeth of all
winds like their own ships of the air. What was to
prevent it approaching Limanora in spite of the force
of the storm-cone ? The thought brought the first
trace of fear into the breasts of this people; for, once
a foreign element had been able to force its way into
their midst, how could they prevent moral contamina-
tion and swift retrogression ? Their advance would
crumble away in a few centuries, nothing but their
material progress being likely to survive the incursion
of barbarism.
It was imperative that new measures of defence be
adopted. It was then that the forces of Rimla had
been enormously increased, thus making it possible for
most of its energy to take the electric form in the storm-
cone. With this they would be able to repel the new
monster with so much metal in its bosom ; they would
play with it as with a toy on the water. All my wan-
derings had been narrowly watched, my landing in
Aleofane, my escape from it, my sojourn in Tirralaria
and ascent of Klimarol, my companionship with Sneek-
ape and my scorn of him, my sympathy with the
refugees in Nookoo, and my friendship with Noola.
Nothing escaped their attention, and my character was
analysed in the most minute way by deductions from
the details of my conduct. It was decided that, if I
showed eagerness and persistence enough, I should be
allowed to land with Noola; but that my fire-ship and
my men should be blown off from the coast.
Since then the affairs of the archipelago had been
observed as narrowly as before, and especially the
wanderings and history of the Daydream. As I ex-
pected, it passed finally into the possession of Broolyi,
Choktroo 197
and the new ideas and methods it brought into the
warfare of this isolated zone of the world made an era
in its history. A great military organiser had arisen;
and he had by the potency of his will moulded Broolyi
into a unity which with the help of new fire-ships built
on the model of my yacht had brought the other islands
into subjection. Even the aristocratic and refined
Aleofane with its subtle government and all-powerful
central institutions had to bow its neck to the yoke.
This strange romance had been enacting for more than
a decade; and the lyimanorans had been watching it,
at first with amusement, and afterwards with resolution
and clear purpose. They knew the whole of this sub-
jugative process was based on hypocrisy and injustice
and bloodshed, but it was not worse than the methods
of political existence it displaced; it only meant the
substitution of one vicious ideal for others as vicious.
There would be more movement and activity for a time,
but as soon as the masterful will had vanished, there
would be a quick return to the old lazy luxury in the
few and lazy misery in the many. It had cost multi-
tudes of lives, and would cost many more before the
military mania had burned itself out ; but of what
worth were most of those lives to themselves or to the
world ? They succeeded, where they did succeed, only
in sustaining themselves wretchedly and perpetuating
a strain of existence that was, if changed at all, tending
downwards. The new spectacle was more sanguinary,
but not one whit more dismal than the ones the I^ima-
norans had witnessed for many generations. The
misery was irremediable, the standard of existence
was so low. To fence it off like a plague was all that
could be done.
When I sat down to the idrovamolan I soon dis-
198 Limanora
covered the master ot this transformation scene. I
heard in Broolyi from all the entrenched camps and
the towns loud huzzas and cries of " Long live Chok-
troo!" Turning the line of sight to the capital, the
conflagration of cries which swept the crowded streets
soon led my eye to the centre of the far-reaching mag-
netic thrill, the square of the imperial palace. There I
saw step out on a balcony and bow to the enthusiastic
populace a little firm-set figure that seemed to awaken
memories in me. I strengthened the power of vision
in order to examine the face more keenly, and, as a
great burst of " Long live our emperor! Long live
Choktroo! " kindled and blazed athwart the city, the
identity of the little conqueror broke upon my con-
sciousness.
It was my cabin-boy, Jock Drew, whom I had
rescued from a life of degradation, if not ultimate in-
famy, in his native village. His father, the local
chimney-sweep, a man of vigorous but small physique,
had succumbed to the fate of so many of his trade, and
swept his throat hourly with the fiercest of whiskey.
His mother, a brave, strong little peasant girl, had
died early of the effort to master this thirsty piece of
humanity that had been tied to her, and his vice. The
boy had the maternal lines in his nature, strong will,
great courage, and fiery passion. It stirred my pity to
see him struggle with such a mean destiny, doubtless
to sink hopelessly into the ditch. He had been shield-
ing himself from the temptation that his drunken
father set before him by living in a world of penny
romance. His imagination was strung to its highest
pitch by the gory pages of his hard-won treasures.
When he heard of my proposed expedition to the other
side of the world, he came and pleaded for even the
Choktroo 199
most menial position on board the Daydream. I was
only too eager to rescue him from the hideous fate be-
fore him, and engaged him as cabin-boy.
After he came on board, some of the men were in-
clined to patronise him, and, when he resisted their
approaches and grew sulky, to apply a rope's end to
him. I had to stand between him and them, even
though I saw that in the end he would have the best of
the quarrel; for he was strong of build and violent
in temper, and only controlled himself, I could see,
that he might have the surer and more complete re-
venge. He was a solitary, musing boy, and I thought
to draw him from his solitude by interesting him in
scientific and philosophical books; but he returned
with the greater gusto to his penny series of lives of the
great pirates, robbers, warriors, and conquerors. The
only section of the Daydream' s library which could
seduce him from his loved studies was that containing
history and adventures. The crew, as was natural,
held the studious little recluse too cheap; and occasion-
ally felt the sting of his tongue when they bantered
him; but his melodramatic manners and attitude,
copied from the coloured representations of his heroes
in his favourite series, laid him open again to their
laughter and scorn. His mind was unwholesome
with brooding over gory achievements and tremendous
ambitions. He often uttered absurd boasts and gave
himself airs that were incongruous with his minute
figure and menial position, and Jock Drew ceased to be
the butt of the ship only when I was present; but he
never ceased to read and meditate. The laughter of
his shipmates drove him more and more into his books
and into himself. Later on in the voyage he extended
200 Limanora
management of the steam-engine, and at last would
spend hours assisting the engineer below. He came
to know every part of the machinery and every secret
of its construction and management. Indeed, the chief
engineer acknowledged that in case of his illness he
had an able successor on board. The guns and all the
ironwork of the ship drew his attention next, and he
came to be respected for his practical knowledge of
every part; when anything needed mending, it was he
who was ultimately called in to give advice or aid.
Slowly he rose to be the real master of the Daydream,
even though he continued to be laughed at for his hero-
mimic airs and his occasional boasts. He had by his
reading and studies made himself essential to every
man on board, and his strong will exacted outward
respect, if not obedience to him, in return. It was
strange to see the revolution in the ship's crew during
their voyaging about the archipelago. When I came
on board again, I saw that, though they continued a
semblance of their old bantering, they had in their
hearts begun to bow before the boy of twenty. The
very gall of their scorn and of his menial position had
driven him into this slow but striking revolt.
And here I saw the result. His boyhood, neglected
and beaten, had given the cunning and worldly wisdom
and concentration of power that belong in most to late
maturity. The strength that had lain dormant for so
many centuries in his mother's peasant race had
gathered in him like a torrent. The hard conditions
of his youth had reined in the wildness and animality
which had run riot in his father's debauchery. Hun-
dreds of such masterful natures, finding no sphere in
their native locality to give scope to the long-dammed-
up powers of their race, waste themselves in chafing
Choktroo 201
against their petty surroundings and die with the
reputation of miniature devils. The focussed energy
of two long-suppressed races had in this case found its
career and scope, and a jdiabolic conflagration was the
consequence in this isolated region of the world. The
race of Jock Drew had never before blossomed; now
that it had found the fit soil, it had flowered porten-
tously.
The misfortune was that his ill-moulded youth
and his favourite reading had left him naked of moral-
ity. He was not in this respect much worse than the
people whom he misled into war or than those whom
he subjugated. He had only more concentrated will
and energy and a keener appreciation of the means
that would best satisfy his appetite for power. The
complete suppression of the desire through thousands
of years of his peasant ancestry made its ultimate man-
ifestation on finding freedom of action all the more
tremendous. It grew with growing self-confidence;
and confidence grew with success. His bearing wholly
altered during the wanderings of the Daydream before
I had abandoned her. He had grown erect and threw
his great chest out and held his large head up till he
overawed his persecutors. Seeing him only in a sitting
position or looking only at his bust one would have
guessed him to be of lofty stature. Yet like his father
and mother he never rose above five feet in height;
and as his face filled up with good fare and the know-
ledge of his own powers it grew handsome and calm,
seldom shqwing the fierce brute slumbering under-
neath. His wonderful self-control and reserve held
him silent in circumstances where speech or action
would have revealed his innate folly or animality, and
202 Limanora
sudden and decisive action, over the wills of others; he
saw that it throws an air of mystery round the indi-
viduality. So he refrained from action till he had com-
plete control of the circumstances and had gathered
such resources into his hands as would astonish his
rivals or enemies; silently, unscrupulously, he got to
know the cards they held in their hands, whilst he con-
cealed his own under seeming inaction; then with a
sudden and unnerving move he threw all his forces
upon them and demoralised them. I had watched the
method in the little intrigues and conspiracies on ship-
board, and I knew when I observed him through the
idrovamolan that he was the same Jock Drew, only
more developed by his astonishing successes.
He had found his opportunity when the Daydream
finally anchored in the chief harbour of Broolyi.
There was much need of government after the plague;
the monarch and his family had fled and finally per-
ished; and the two rivals for the position were almost
equally matched. There was prospect of a long civil
war. The wiser and stronger counsellors set up a
republic, but this was only a feeble stop-gap. The
flames of civil war burst out in spite of it.
Jock arrived at this stage of their history, and joined
the staff of the competitor for the throne who held the
capital and the key of the public treasury. He rapidly
became prime adviser in the camp, and as soon as he
had attracted confidence in himself and his character
he set his method to work. He led an army out to
attack the enemy, and completely routed them by the
suddenness of his action; he had led one half of his
troops straight out to meet the forces opposed to him,
but he had sent the others round by a secret path into
their rear, and they burst simultaneously upon the
Choktroo 203
enemy. The surprise broke the spirit of the attacked
and they fled in rout.
With wily stratagem he incited other officers to rival
him, and took care that they went out under disad-
vantageous conditions. They failed, and their failures
led to loud demands for Choktroo, as he came to be
called. He now got command of the whole of the re-
sources of the state, and used them for the making of
guns and other surprises for the enemy. Meanwhile he
allowed the enemy to think that his party was wholly
demoralised by defeats, and they crept up towards the
walls of the city in their excess of confidence. He knew
by his spies in their camp how vainglorious they had
become; but he allowed their bravado to rise to the
pitch of foolhardiness, and then, his preparations being
made, he opened fire upon them, from all sides. So com-
plete was the rout, that the enemy disappeared from
the country around and took refuge in distant castles
and forts.
His name grew into a power of itself, rousing enthu-
siasm wherever he appeared and greatly terrifying
his opponents. It was then that there began the
most striking part of his career. All the brave and
able generals who during the civil war had come up
from the ranks were completely in his power. He
sent them out to master castles or detachments of the
enemy, but with such imperfect forces or supplies as
would render them inactive. Their individual talents
snatched occasional small victories, but as a rule they
only prepared for ultimate victory by raising entrench-
ments and scouring the country around. Whenever
he discovered that in any part a general was about to
be successful in spite of his disadvantages, he hurried
204 Limanora
of an ofiicer anywhere seemed about to ensure defeat
he marched reinforcements to his aid and turned it into
success. Whenever he suffered defeat himself, he
always managed to represent it as a brilliant success
marred by the incompetence of some other general.
At last he grew weary of the guerrilla warfare and re-
solved that it should end. So he withdrew his troops
from siege-work and allowed the rebels to gather con-
fidence and to mass again. He sent several generals
against them with small armies. Their defeats gave
the enemy still greater boldness. They ventured
nearer to the capital; and when they were defiling
through a pass he appeared on the heights with his
guns. The two sections of his army closed the mouths
of the pass, and the finest array the rebels had ever
shown was shattered. The castles and forts soon sur-
rendered. With one acclaim Choktroo was elected
emperor, and the candidate whom he was supposed to
be helping vanished from the scene.
His boyish reading had made him as much of an
actor as he was by nature an organiser. Before long
the whole people of Broolyi were adoring him as a god.
Their passion was glory; and in him they had found
the incarnation of glory. No piece of work in the state
so minute but, if successful, he claimed as his own, even
should it have been centuries old. No act of his own
but, if unsuccessful, he found a scapegoat for. He was
mean enough to steal and eavesdrop in his own house-
hold; he was bold enough to outlie the foulest of his
minions, to outface the most manifest exposure of his
crimes. He even dared to assume the r&le of divinity.
He ringed himself round with mystery and ceremonial,
and when he did appear in public made the appear-
ance impressive by its display. He knew the eff'ect of
Choktroo 205
silence, and cheapened neither himself nor his words.
He organised the state on military lines and made it
centre in his personality.
He soon had exhausted the treasury and the resources
of the country in the civil war and in his public dis-
plays. Nor could he keep up his glory long in in-
action, even though it was an inaction of mystery. He
must soon go to war beyond the bounds of the island.
There he could shine, there he could get all the sup-
plies he needed; but he had to keep up the farce the
nation had played for centuries of professing to keep
the peace, for he had adopted the title of the Prince
of Peace. He had to make it appear that his wars
were forced on him by his neighbours, and for this
invented an elaborate system of diplomacies which
enabled him to pick a quarrel and yet seem to have it
thrust upon him.
His first quarry was Aleofane; for it was the wealth-
iest island in the archipelago. For years he kept up a
show of alliance with it, till he had his fire-ships ready,
built under his direction on the model of the Daydream.
He racked his dominion to make guns and all kinds of
firearms. When the expedition was complete, he made
a demand of Aleofane that had show of reason and yet
could not be complied with. It was refused, and his
fleet was outside the capital before it could make prepa-
ration. He sent some of his ships to the other side of
the island to land troops, and as these marched up by
land he disembarked the rest under protection of his
guns. The first battle decided the war. He dethroned
the monarch of Aleofane and annexed the island to
his dominions, setting up a viceroy, with a strong force
to support him.
He drew new troops from the ranks of the people for
2o6 Limanora
service in other islands. He impoverished those nobles
who refused to join his court or his staff. He broke
the spirit of all who would not adore him, and he
drained by taxation the resources of the country.
With still larger armies and larger fleets he swept
conquering over the whole archipelago, till every
people bowed before him. Those who distinguished
themselves in his wars or in his service he elevated to
new distinctions and titles. Those who died in his
wars he beatified. With great ceremony he would
raise all the dead on one of his battle-fields to the rank
of sub-divinities, till his heaven was as crowded as his
court. He did not obliterate the old religions; but he
overshadowed them, and his policy kept subject to
him the passion for glory in life and deification after
death that lurks in every human bosom. The active
and the romantic were strung up to enthusiasm by the
magnetism of his name. Most thought it was his per-
sonality which set their blood throbbing, but it was
only that his deeds and his histrionic power of magni-
fying them worked on their imaginations. How wild
their fervour I could scarcely have realised had I not
observed it with my own senses.
He had to keep moving and victoriously moving
if his magnetism were not to vanish. When his em-
pire included all the islands in the archipelago but the
Isle of Devils in the centre, there was nothing for it but
to attempt its conquest. We heard him bluster out
his favourite bombastic phrases, learned from his penny
romances and biographies. " Heaven is our ally, aud
who on earth can stand against us? Is it not our
mission, the mission of a god, to chase all devils from
the earth ? Our last conquest shall be hell, and its
denizens shall die by fire and sword." Utterances-and
Choktroo 207
proclamations like this fired the imaginations of his
soldiers, and they would have laid their lives down at
the moment for this fire-eater. What he had boasted
or threatened before, he had done, or had by astute
fiction persuaded his followers that he had done; and
what limit was there to his deeds ? If he said that he
would scale the heavens, they were certain he would
do it. The thought fused them into a unity and
chased out of their breasts the panic which the mere
mention of the central isle produced.
He had not the traditional and hereditary ague-fit to
overcome in his blood, yet there was a new sinking of
the heart when he thought of his task. He had to
reassure himself by wild rhodomontade, as he superin-
tended the building and armament of an enormous
fleet and the concentration of the largest army the
archipelago had ever seen. He could not pick a diplo-
matic quarrel with his new victim; yet he must have
at least the semblance of a cause in order to put heart
into his followers. He announced that he had sent
envoys to the Isle of Devils to open intercourse with it,
but they were not allowed to approach. Again and
again had he tried this pacific measure, but no heed
had been given to him. I,et vengeance be upon the
heads of so churlish and unjust a people! How could
such poltroons and men-haters be allowed to cumber
the earth ?
I watched the great fleet put out from Broolyi with
its streamers of smoke. We could have heard the ac-
clamations almost with the unaided ear; they rent the
sky when Choktroo went on board his own fire-ship,
which was thrice the size of the largest of the others,
and thrice more brilliantly caparisoned. He passed
with his favourite silent and self-absorbed look on his
2o8 Limanora
face through the applauding crowds on to a raised
platform in the stern, reserved for him and his staff.
Arrived there he paced silently with his chin resting
on his folded arms. He knew what an impression of
godlikeness this made on the crowd. Small though he
was in stature, he doubtless seemed to his followers and
the people on the shore to take gigantic proportions.
I was amazed to see so little perturbation amongst the
Limanorans. They seemed to watch the whole scene
as if it were a comedy. On the fleet steamed, and yet
there was perfect calm in the community; only the
Lilamo were at their posts on the peak of Lilaroma.
The rest were peacefully seated at the idrovamolans or
busy with their usual avocations. I knew the destruc-
tiveness of the great cannon that Choktroo had pre-
pared, and the distance they would carry. On this
point indeed I had been consulted some months before.
I knew, too, how this people shrank from every act that
would involve the loss of a human life. How were
they to repel this great armament without whelming
it in the ocean and drowning a large proportion of
those in the ships ? Thyriel could throw no light on
the problem; we were both too young to be taken into
the confidence of the wise men or to know their designs.
I could do nothing but watch the fleet and then pass
to my daily duties.
A night passed, and at dawn we could see the islands
of smoke lie black on the horizon; the ships themselves
had not appeared. Choktroo evidently knew that it
was useless to conceal the expedition or its object from
this far-seeing people under the darkness of night. It
was too well known throughout the archipelago how
penetrative was their gaze. He meant to make his
attack by day. Soon the funnels and the masts broke
Choktroo 209
the sky-line. Yet there was not a sound from the
storm-cone. The slight wind had fallen; everything
favoured the invader. He could see through the trans-
lucent air every feature of our island and almost every
movement of its inhabitants as soon as we could dis-
cern the human beings on board his ships with the
naked eye. Were they getting drawn into some gigan-
tic trap? This thought evidently occurred to the
leader of the armament, as it occurred to me, for the
fleet lessened speed. I could see Choktroo, at a loss
what to do, on his poop consulting with his ofi5cers,
who could help him little. Still the storm-cone stood
silent on the mountain-peak.
The bold step had to be taken; the order was given
for advance. The smoke again streamed in the rear of
the fleet, an^ I could see the gunners prepare for
action and the sailors and soldiers set the boats ready
for launching. What had happened to the Lilamo ?
Were they all asleep ? Was the progress of the island
at last to be trampled under the feet of this brutal
soldier and his forces? The fire-ships were almost
within cannon-shot of the shore; there pufEed out the
preliminary whiff from the side of Choktroo's steamer
and the ball fell with a roar into the ocean between.
Another five minutes and matters would be past
remedy. Yet there was perfect calm among the L,ima-
norans. I controlled my excitement and watched the
fleet. Everything was bustle on board, and when I
sat down to the idrovamolan all sounds were jubilant
and boasting. This Isle of Devils was at last to have
her master. This proud isolation was at last to be
broken. Such exclamations I could hear from the
gunners as they loaded and ran out their guns.
All was silence, for all was ready for the word of
2IO Limanora
command. Choktroo paced his poop in scarce-con-
trollable glee. His thoughts were doubtless stretching
out beyond the fog circle to the countries he had left
behind him with his boyhood, other worlds for him to
conquer. His arms were folded and his eye was turned
inward; he knew that the whole expedition was await-
ing his nod. Soon he stopped stone-silent and stiff, as
if to give the decisive word. I waited the action, but
he still stood moveless. I looked over the ship; there
was his staff awaiting his beck as if petrified. Every
man was at his post, but not a muscle moved; the eyes
stared as if they belonged to the dead. My glance
took in the other ships; all were as silent and still as
the grave. The whole armament seemed turned to
stone.
Then there fluttered down upon the vessels human
figures that I recognised as of the Lilanio. In a mo-
ment a Limanoran pilot stood at the helm of each fire-
ship; and as if by nature the whole fleet turned
majestically round and made for the shelving beach of
a low uninhabited island underneath the horizon. On
and on they sped straight for the shore, round whose
margin not the least fringe of surf whitened. Through
the idrovamolan I could hear the grating keels as they
struck the sand and pebbles at full speed. The crash
seemed to awaken the crews and the soldiers, who
rubbed their eyes as if roused from a dream. Before
them the bows of their ships were burrowing themselves
in the blown sand of the beach; but already I could
see the pilots winging their way through the sky back
to Limanora.
There was a silent power in the lilaran which I had
not investigated: its power of magnetism. This it
could exercise several miles off; but it grew feebler
Choktroo 2 1 1
with the distance. In this aspect, then, the lilaran
could not be used as a weapon of defence far from the
shore of I,imanora. If, however, there was a mass of
iron or like magnetisable metal in the ship that con-
tained its victims, its power had been discovered to be
as great far as near. It was only recently that they
had so far developed their personal power of arresting
the consciousness by sudden sleep-petrifaction as to be
able to exercise it at a distance. This they accom-
plished by material aids to the magnetic faculty. The
sudden flashing of brilliant objects before the eyes and
the use of powerful magnets had been found to inten-
sify the somnifractive power of the eye and the mag-
netic sense. This led them to make experiments with
the concentrated power of magnets all brilliant with
irelium jewels. The result was that they found the
somnifractive power to reside even more in things than
inpersons. They tried it through the lilaran on Lima-
norans of the most powerful will at the farthest corner
of the island, and found it to be the more effective the
more power they concentrated and the more iron or
metals of similar quality were near the patient.
This result had been reached about the time they had
come to see that the invasion of their island by Chok-
troo was inevitable without some other than the mere
wind-power of the lilaran. Step by step the I^ilamo
brought their new weapon to perfection; at any mo-
ment they could concentrate the forces of Rimla into
this faculty of the lilaran. They experimented on
Limanorans in boats out at .sea, and finally could tabu-
late the magnetic powers at various distances. This
explained to me the flashings I had often seen. on the
horizon and had taken for an effect of the idrovamolan ;
2 1 2 Limanora
This explained the perfect calm with which the Lima-
norans watched the approach of Choktroo's expedition
and the thrilling keenness of the flashes that swept
over his fire-ships.
I watched for many days the effect of this great blow
upon the nature and fortunes of my old cabin-boy.
Over his immediate staff and army he was able to
regain his full sway as soon as they recovered from the
shock; but his power over the other islanders was
completely shaken. Bodies of them launched the boats
from the steamers and made off for their own islands
before the leaders were aware of their intentions. The
moment Choktroo realised the position he turned his
still uninjured guns in the direction of the sea and
commanded all issue from the beach where his ships
were buried. For wholesome example he sank several
boats which had almost got out of his reach. Then
he set his army to dig canals around one of his fire-
ships; but no sooner was she ready for floating than
the whole force of the lilaran was turned in her direc-
tion; the waves rose and a single night's surf com-
pletely undid the labour of days. The ship was as
deeply embedded as ever; and her sisters had almost
disappeared beneath the sand-dunes. The weight of
metal in them shortened the process of burial.
It was clear that nothing could be done to save the
expedition or bring its material back to Broolyi. Be-
fore many days we saw the soldiers embark somewhat
sadly in the boats and find their way across the ocean
to the adjacent islands. Piecemeal the whole army
retraced its steps to Broolyi.
It was not likely that Choktroo would allow this slur
to rest on his fame and eat into his power like rust, for
there was clear evidence that his influence over even
Choktroo 213
the Broolyians had greatly sufifered. By means of his
advertising and his histrionic abilities he had brought
them to believe that he was invincible; they now began
to feel that he had the same limitations as themselves:
he was powerless against the magic of the Isle of Devils.
All his wiles were needed to check the spread of panic
and distrust. He first of all minimised the defeat in
his proclamations, and before many months were over
he had come to speak of it as a victory marred by the
invincible powers of nature. He had been quick to
recognise the similarity of the phenomenon to that
we had experienced in the Daydream when running the
gauntlet of the fog circle, and he sent out party after
party to explore the ring of mystery and to come back
with tales of its magical powers of inducing sleep.
Thus was he soon able to convince the archipelago that
the failure of his great expedition was due, not to the
inhabitants of the Isle of Devils, but to the forces of
nature. He had in his own eye and will great mes-
meric power, and by practice was able to develop it
into something that he could exercise at pleasure.
Then he made public exhibition of his capacity in the
various islands. He threw numbers into mesmeric
sleep, nor would he or could he release them from its
thrall. They became his willing slaves and lived only
to please him. A milder form of mesmeric fascination
he used in order to rivet his despotism on his armies.
He would address sections of them with bombastic self-
glorification of his deeds and powers and with flatteries
of them and their glorious courage. His personal
magnetism worked upon them as they gazed at him,
and by the close of his speech he had them enthralled
to his will.
It was not long before he was feared as a magician
214 Limanora
by all who did not mesmerically worship him; and tens
of thousands were eager to do the most wicked and
shameful deeds, if only he bade them. Yet he dared
not shrink from another fall with the inhabitants of the
Isle of Devils; else even this preternatural fascination
that he exercised might vanish. For years he racked
the wealth of the islands and built an enormous fleet of
still more powerful fire-ships, and armed it with still
more powerful guns. To supply the funds for the ex-
pedition, those who were not trained fighting men be-
came slaves, who toiled for him all but their few hours
of sleep. Rebellion against this galling and impover-
ishing despotism was slowly forming in the breasts of
the people. Many of them were disappearing myster-
iously. They had betaken themselves to unapproach-
able caverns like Nookoo, and my dreamer of Swoonarie
was arming them with his plague-pellets. A few more
months and revolution would have broken out against
the despot, and he at least would have perished; but
the expedition sailed in all its pomp, again deeply im-
pressing the imaginations of the islanders. This time
he had taken precautions against the somnifaction of
his army by means of a sleep-expelling drug. Every
man was furnished with a dose of it to take as soon as
they came near the dreaded isle. The I^ilamo had
been busy for some time, I had seen; but the Lima-
norans were as unconcerned at this approach as at the
former one. What new defence had they ? I could see
no more preparation than there had been on the pre-
vious occasion. The calm which prevailed reassured
me ; yet soon I grew restless with the fear that this fire-
eating cabin-boy with the mystery in his eyes would
sully the shores of lyimanora with his vulgar ambitions.
My fear became alarm as I saw on the horizon the
Choktroo 2 1 5
smoke of the fleet and heard through the idrovamolan
the shout of triumph rise from the army when the peak
of Ivilaroma had burst on their view. I could see each
man drink his drug; and I thought that all was lost.
Suddenly there came a roar from every ship; and I
could see that it accompanied a plume of steam that
escaped from the sides. The boiler of every fire-ship
had evidently been punctiired; and soon I could see
that it cost those on board unceasing effort to keep
afloat. The soldiers were about to take to the boats
when a deeper-mouthed roar numbed every other
sound. It was the lilaran at work, and the whole fleet
soon vanished over the horizon before its compulsive
blast.
The puncturing had been accomplished by submarine
action. The lyilamo had sent through the waters their
floating batteries, which by nicely adjusted weights lay
beneath the surface right on the track of the fleet.
The electric cables by which they were secured could
shift them hither and thither; and through them im-
mense force could be applied, sending a volley of keen
darts up towards whatever iron there was above them.
These darts had entered the hulls of the ships just be-
neath the water-line and made their way into the iron
of the engines; one or other told on the boilers and
disabled the ships. The electric floats were unseen by
the expedition, and the wounding of the fleet was as
mysterious and magical as the sleep had been on the
previous attempt. Panic seized on every soldier and
sailor, and they thanked their gods when the blast of
the lilaran hurried them to the shelving beach of a low
island and they heard the keels grate on shingle and
sand. They scrambled on shore through the surf and
found shelter from the wind behind the mounds that
2i6 Limanora
covered the former fleet or under their gaunt ribs or
sides.
But a new panic overcame them when they dis-
covered that their leader was gone and could nowhere
be found. Then it was remembered that in the worst
of the storm which blew from Lilaroma a giant bird
had swooped down towards his ship and rested for a
moment on the platform, where he stood in solitary
meditation, and as suddenly soared up again. It was
two messengers of the I,ilamo who had been sent in
one of their bird-shaped air-ships to make an end
of these warlike expeditions. They had alighted be-
side Choktroo, and by the powerful means they com-
manded had sent him into a deep sleep in spite of his
drug; they tossed him into their air-ship and in a few
moments were high in the azure rushing before the
blast of the lilaran. Away they fled with him all day
and all night across the belt of fog, and having reached
the outer world they let him down still tranced on the
shore of a lonely coral islet of the Pacific close to a
group inhabited by a savage and warlike tribe.
Choktroo had their instincts and ambitions; let him
master the savages when he awakened. A wild beast
could do no harm amongst wild beasts.
His memory and example haunted the archipelago
like an evil dream for generations. Some thought that
he had been borne aloft to heaven by a messenger of
the gods, and worshipped him as divine; his cruel
tyranny and wars goaded on his worshippers to wild
fury of injustice and slaughter. Others who were
keener of brain and had perceived the earthly character
of their leader and his purposes were incited to like
ambitions. The romance of his life was glorified in
verse and prose by every new school of literature and
Choktroo 2 1 7
fired the imaginations of boyhood to warlike exploits.
War, piracy, plunder came to be the favourite forms
of dishonesty in the archipelago. It was marvellous
how much the peaceful and obscure suffered from the
romance of this cabin-boy's adventures.
But no man of the islands dared again to approach
the Isle of Devils. Even he whom so many of them
reputed a god had been unable to break in; and the
mishap to the last fleet had been more bewildering
than that to the first. Magical powers were possessed
by the inhabitants of this island without a doubt;
there seemed to be no limit to their transcendence of
the order of nature. Evil they were, and the fear of
them the Broolyians had to endure in patience. Nor
did it grow less from generation to generation. Fancy
never let the stories of the defeat of the great Choktroo
rest; they gathered to them features more and more
terrible to contemplate. A halo of dread and mystery
is far more- effective as a fence against human intru-
sion than a halo of sanctity or even divinity. It cows
the miscreant and the brute in the human breast. The
duties of the L,ilamo in repelling the attacks of men
would vanish for hundreds of generations.
For Choktroo, his i fate was a romantic contrast to
that of his fame. Reports were 'brought in by the
idrovamolan or by flying messengers who had ventured
over the belt of fog. He was rescued by the neigh-
bouring tribe before he starved on the barren islet,
only to be threatened with sacrifice to one of their
gods. A missionary who had some influence over the
heathen arrived at the moment of sacriflce and saved
him. After learning their language he worked his
way by intrigues and assassinations and what they
2i8 Limanora
he had made himself secure in his power over them, he
built a great fleet of war-canoes, and, after mastering
the groups of islands within range and enlisting their
warriors and canoes in his service, he set sail southward
for some land they knew not of. South and then east
the fleet made way, his followers still unalarmed. At
last appeared the circle of mystery on the horizon. He
gave the word to row forward into it; but, before the
command had reached the outermost of the canoes, he
was hurled from his platform into the sea, and, as he
rose to the surface, he was promptly speared by his
own immediate staff. Round swung the heads of the
canoes by one simultaneous impulse. Their chief had
become a madman to think of entering that belt of
mystery; and away they paddled for very life; nor
did they cease their frantic efforts till the dark cloud
had sunk beneath the horizon.
CHAPTER XV
THE DUOMOVAMOI thf HpntVis hv the minions of Hterarv fame. How
242 Limanora
after! I looked into the hearts of the famous and saw
corrupt masses of jealousy and hate, or hollow shells
echoing the misery of life. The most appalling sight
was, not the failures in art and learning, science and
commerce, but the successes. Behind a mask of smil-
ing prosperity and conventional enjoyment of the world
there was but a handful of dust that bore the weary load
of existence in agony.
Generation after generation came and passed through
this torturing fire, knowing not why they bore the
pangs for threescore years and ten, or whither they
were borne. They seemed to improve, but only sank
deeper into the original barbarism. Here and there
they picked out a name of one long dead and wor-
shipped it; but the shrine was empty; it was only a
name, and not the personality for which it had once
stood. Behind I could hear the spirit wailing and
cursing its fate and the falsehood and hypocrisy of his
adorers. He knew the hollowness and pretence of the
whole performance; he knew that the name had be-
come a weapon for offending and maiming those who
in their innocence were struggling for fame, as he had
done, in vain.
The deepest circle of hell was still to meet my
eyes.. I thought, as I was guided to it, that it must
be that of murderers and furious criminals. My
amazement grew, as I looked into the lens and saw
that the actors, or I should more truly say the sufferers,
were the great of the earth, the monarchs and states-
men and warriors, who drew all men's eyes to them as
the masters of life. A movement on the part of my
guide touched some key, and a strange gleam of un-
earthly light threw out into relief the hidden mechan-
ism of their existence. Round everyone was a network
Their Heaven and Their Hell 243
of threads like a spider's web, and the coiitroHing ends
of the threads led up obscurely into the hands of a
crowd of miscreants, who lay out of sight of the ap-
plauding mobs; when a limb or a lip or an eye seemed
to move of its own accord to the music of huzzas, it
was jerked by a thread in the control of some scowling
villain who worked the movement for his own murder-
ous purpose. These gorgeous figures were but puppets
playing a marionette-play upon the stage of life. One
or two of the strongest seemed instinct with the breath
of originality, but a still stronger light revealed ada-
mantine chains woven around them, and attached to
these one master-chain which disappeared into infinity;
they were in the spider-web of fate. Still more awful
was the sight of their own hearts; each had a crimson-
taloned vulture gnawing the vitals, and each saw every
detail of the agonising sight; nor could he move to the
right or left except to cluch at the bared heart of his
rival and torture him. Who could imagine hell more
appalling than this? Yet up the giddy approach to
the seats of the mighty climbed eager competitors for
any place in this torture-chamber death or defeat might
empty.
Then behind all stretched the curtain of infinity;
and as it rose the ranks of worlds and universes ap-
peared, dwarfing into pettiness the sights that had
racked my eyes. Life and the ideals of life rose
higher and higher up through the regimented worlds,
and the little inferno I had watched became a micro-
scopic speck on the round of existence. The shadow
of their heaven fell over their heads. The agony I had
seen became but an atom in infinity.
CHAPTER XVII
MY EDUCATION CONTINtTED
THE gaze into the probabilities of the future and
into the realities of the past ejected from my sys-
tem whatever of dangerous admiration I might have
felt for the career of such a military adventurer as
Choktroo. In spite of my self-control and rapidly de-
veloping reasoning faculty, there lurked in me the same
longing for power that had been so evident in my
cabin-boy. Though he had fallen so wretchedly there
was a romance about his career which appealed to some-
thing deep-seated in my spirit. I knew what a hypo-
crite and scoundrel he had become in order to make his
success, yet the success seemed to condone his offences
against the progress of humanity. The lust of rule
that lies in the hearts of all men had not yet been eradi-
cated from mine. I had advanced so far as to be
ashamed of it; and I tried to reason it down or to con-
ceal even from myself the fact of its existence; but
my guardians knew that it was there, and they took
the necessary precautions against its growth. Thus
did I pass with the whole people through the national
purification ending with a glimpse of their heaven and
their hell.
And now I was ready to re-enter on my process of
244
My Education Continued 245
education. The more spiritual portions of my nature
had been remoulded or confirmed to follow in the true
path of Limanoran development. The last purificatory
process had revealed in me the virtuous or progressive
balance that ensured success in the island. The minds
of my guardians were now at rest with regard to my
spiritual future, and I was on the fair way to become
one of the community.
Still my physical constitution lagged far behind the
race. Nor had I any hope of ever making up this
lost time, so much had the education of generations
and the accumulations of heredity done for them. My
senses were but feebly developed compared with those
of the I,imanorans; and though they gave sensuous
faculties a far lower place than the most advanced
thinkers I had ever known of in Europe, they by no
means neglected them, but considered them important
instruments of progress in the material conditions of
their life.
My proparents thought it necessary that I should be
brought in the development of my sensuous perceptions
nearer to their own level, now that my love of reason
was so strong as to preclude the possibility of being
overwhelmed by sensuous energy. They began with
the most intellectual of the senses, the eyesight, and by
the help of magnetism, hypnotic suggestion, and con-
stant practice under their tuition, they soon brought
me to see farther afield and more keenly into the struc-
ture of things around me than I had in Europe thought
it possible for the human eye to accomplish. I could
perceive with the naked eye stars that I had been
able to see before only through the telescope. I began
to note the changes of tissue underneath the skull of
my neighbours when any great thought or emotion
246 Limanora
stirred in them, and could use their wonderful instru-
ments of far and near research with appreciation.
Through these instruments faint stars appeared moons,
and the nearer planets revealed many of the secrets of
their surface; whilst the elements resolved themselves
into even simpler constituents. What still lay beyond
I could not imagine, yet there were manifestly worlds,
intensive and extensive, still to be explored beyond the
limits of these aids to sight.
In the life of an individual I could not expect to ap-
proach the development of optic faculty attained by
this people. This impressed itself more deeply upon
me when my guardians tried to evolve in me the mag-
netic power of eye which every lyimauoran had by
nature. When any one of them turned his full glance
upon me, it was like encountering the direct beams of
the sun; I had to drop my eyelids in self-defence. It
was this that gave them such hypnotic power over
Choktroo and his followers. Their eye was an active
exponent of the soul within as well as a passive re-
cipient of messages from the world without, and could
concentrate into its glance the energy of their powerful
wills. Any one of these l,imanorans amongst the
feebler-eyed millions of the rest of the world would
have proved himself a master-spirit. He would, with
his unhesitating will and the magnetism of his eye,
have kept masses of men in check and moulded them
into a unity, and the great commanders of history
would have blenched before his gaze.
From the first I had felt uneasy under the full glance
of my island friends, in spite of its kindliness and
benevolence. Before I left England, I had been
supposed to have the mesmeric faculty to an excep-
tional degree. Now I found it pale before those mar-
My Education Continued 247
vellous Limanoran eyes, and all the training and
physical aid my proparents could give me in this direc-
tion, though they added greatly to my energy of will
and eye, only brought out my hopeless inferiority. I
was able at last to bear their glances with ease, and
even to raise my eyes to theirs for a few seconds; but
I ceased to hope for the attainment of their ocular com-
mand or their magnetic power.
Even their passive electric sense was far beyond my
possibility in many of its ramifications. For years I
had wondered why their couriers into far regions of the
sky could without any chart or landmarks find their way
back to their island home with such ease. It could not
be by means of vision ; for they often went flying above
the clouds to the antipodes; nor could it be by smell;
for that sense was not nearly so much developed as the
others. In some of mj' now more distant flights with
Thyriel I discovered that they homed by the electric
sense. It had become keen in the measurements of
amounts of electricity ; and every locality had its own
electric possibilities, not to speak of a certain peculiar
quality in its electricity which difierentiated it from
all others. One of the most important branches of
their education was the magnetography of the earth
and sky. Although I never got beyond a vague per-
ception of differences in the degrees of electricity, it was
of some use to me in my flights to have learned the
elements of this great descriptive science. I could
tell with fair accuracy how high I was above the earth
and whether I was drifting away from I^imanora or
towards it; for the amount of electricity in any region
varied within certain definite limits and the conditions
governing it were constant for long periods of time;
these were, roughly, the metals beneath the surface of
248 Limanora
the earth, the differences in temperature of the strata
of air above, the evaporation and chemical changes on
the earth below, and the periodicity of the influence of
the sun and the stars. Their electric charts of the sky
and air were ever in process of correction, but so slightly
and gradually in each region that it was only after
long periods that the Limanoran couriers had to revise
their magnetographic knowledge; indeed it was their
reports after long flights which generally led to the
minute corrections of their charts. It was the work of
a few minutes only to learn the new modifications, for
their charts were exact miniature models of that which
they were intended to represent; the learner had only
to touch a spring and by the inner mechanism of the
globe out would ray to each point of it the electricities
that in degree and quality belonged to the region indi-
cated; the member of the electric family who guided
him would explain the changes that had occurred since
he last consulted the instrument, and his own electric
sense would tell him the rest.
Nor was this magnetographic training useful merely
for the purpose of pilotage through the heavenly
vault. It enabled any courier to seek the region
where he would most easily recharge the little en-
gines which he bore with him under his arms to
aid in his wing journey. Although he could prevent
the complete exhaustion of these power auxiliaries
by supplying them with some of the magnetism in
his own body, it was only in emergencies that he did
this; for his own system needed electric recuperation
as well. Whenever this was required, he made for
some region of the air that he knew to be highly elec-
tric; and there he floated, whilst with his receptive
sense he drew in new stores for his own system and
My Education Continued 249
for his little armpit engines. Then he went on his
way rejoicing, exhilarated by his new energy. One of
the purposes of their frequent flight into atmospheric
spheres other than their own was to drink in new mag-
netism from one of the great sky fountains.
When a Limanoran returned from an aerial flight
there was renewed life in him. His eyes glowed with
a heightened radiancy; I could see a soft light play
about them in the dark, and this, if needed, he could
make even piercing in its brilliancy. He required no
light to guide him in the deepest night. His electric
sense gathered in from the atmosphere the scattered
radiance that was hidden from my sight; and from his
eyes he could emit this electricity in the form of light.
For me, who, under all their training, was never able
to develop such power over the unseen forces of the air,
the eyes of Thyriel were a guide in our flight through
the night sky; and by day so gentle a brilliance
played around them it was little wonder they fascinated
and drew me ever to them. After experiencing their
power, I was not surprised at the hypnotic influence
Limanoran eyes had had over the leaders of the hostile
expedition.
It did not astonish me to find that by means of their
electric energy they could move vast masses which no
mere muscular force could have touched. I had a con-
stitution that seemed to be physically far stronger than
Thyriel's; yet, if she had time to reinforce her store of
magnetism, she could accomplish feats of strength I
could not approach. In her fragile system there seemed
to reside a giant's energy; but this was only at times,
and especially after she had made some long journey
into the regions of the air. The tissues and fibres of
her body seemed to grow tenfold stronger when the
250 Limanora
new electric energy tingled along her nerves. In only
the faintest way was I ever able to develop my electric-
receptive sense so far as to realise what a new store
meant to their physical powers.
Yet my guardians set themselves to bring out my
latent electric sense or firla. After much practice and
the application of many stimuli I began to feel im-
pulses more keenly even when they came from a dis-
tance: the back of my neck grew more and more
sensitive, so that I would wheel round instinctively
when anyone looked at me from behind. There was
almost hope that I should, after many years' practice,
come to distinguish the different kinds of emotion with
which anyone, though unseen, might look at me; and
I could produce by a concentration of will-force in the
eyes a certain luminosity, noticeable when I stood in
deep darkness.
My power of sight was greatly strengthened by this
new electric faculty that the eyes acquired. I began
to raise my eyelids before the penetrative glance of a
lyimanoran, or even the full majesty of the sun; but
never could I hope to reach their analytic power of
vision. Their senses were distinguished from those of
the rest of mankind by intellectuality, and were, I
thought, not merely the observers and reporters of the
mind, but its outlying parts or functions. The eye
especially seemed to do what through its means reason
and experiment might have done. At a glance a
Limanoran would tell to an inch the distance of any
object, and was not far wrong in his estimate of the
space between the earth and any star when its rays
reached his eye. He could distinguish one ray from
another by its colour or colour-constituents and by
its magnetic afiiuities. What he had learned in the
My Education Continued 251
use of the inamar or spectroscope in the lava wells and
in the fusion of metals in Rimla had come to be a visual
instinct. With scarcely a minute's hesitation he would
tell the predominant elements in any one of the
heavenly bodies. Doubtless the firla had something
to do with this analytic power. One of their imagina-
tive pioneering books held out the by no means remote
possibility of catching symptoms of the life which, they
knew well, filled the dim worlds above.
Their auditory powers had been far less developed
than their visual, and gave but faint hope of transcend-
ing interstellar space, and my training soon brought
me within easy distance of their hearing capacity.
The range of this faculty both at its upper and its
lower limit had been considerably extended. Sounds
dangerous on account of their loudness to the inner
mechanism of ordinary ears were by means partly of
strengthening the protective cartilages and partly of a
trevamolan or graduated modifier of sound, which they
constantly wore, made harmless and even gentle and
enjoyable. Those that were too faint to reach any
human ear became audible to me after some training
in the use of their vamolans or makro-mikrakousts. So
greatly had these been improved along with the power
of hearing that they could discriminate the different
noises of microscopic life. These vamolans in their
application of electricity to hearing could make the
buzzing of an insect sound like the roar of thunder.
By modifications of them any of the sounds heard
through them could be recorded for ever.
Thus had been formed a library and museum of the
phonology of animal life. They had been able to study
the records of sounds emitted by the various species of
animals and had come to know the meaning of each
252 Limanora
sound before they had driven all but microscopic life
from the island; thus they had learned by means ot
the recording vamolans the language of animals. The
birds of the air I have seen follow the cries of Thyriel,
gathering around her in clouds, as she flew, until by
a sudden change of tone she would scatter the flutter-
ing masses to the four winds. Even the fish of the sea
would rise and leap above the waves to her notes;
ferocious, devouring monsters would leave their prey
and follow gently in her train. Most of this power
over the undeveloped creation was due to the record
and study of their cries; but not all. The magnetism
of her personality had a strange efiect upon the wildest
birds of prey: it seemed to bear with it tacitly the les-
son of L,imanoran civilisation that no life was to be de-
stroyed by those who meant to make the best of life;
there was a gentle, merciful spirit in the glow of the
eyes. I have seen her take a wounded bird to her
bosom as she flew, and, putting new life into it by the
stroke of her fingers, set it free, strong and happy.
There was a life-giving power in the tips of I/ima-
noran fingers that puzzled me at first. Why the mere
touch should so soothe the lower creation that the agony
of their wounds would soon vanish and their cries cease
bewildered me for a time. My own pains rapidly dis-
appeared under the touch of my proparents. I after-
wards knew that part of the active magnetism of their
system came through their fingers and they helped me
to develop this channel of influence in myself. I could
at last by passing my fingers over Thyriel's hair or face
relieve any tension of her nerves which might have
produced pain; nay, I could hear her hair crackle
under my touch when I had charged my system with
much electricity. Once or twice I was able to draw a
My Education Continued 253
wounded bird to me, and change by my stroke on the
feathers its cries of pain into low notes of content;
but I could never draw the winged creation to me in
clouds as Thyriel did.
It was all the more surprising to me that they fenced
off animal life from their island. What might they
not have done with such powers over the lower crea-
tion? When I put my question into words, the answer
was unhesitating and unanswerable. All failures in
development had to be thrust from the path of pro-
gress; they could do nothing but clog it. If the
Limanorans had little hesitation in the case of their
own flesh and blood, they had still less when they had
to deal with animals. It was quite true that many of
the more highly developed. of the servants of man had
nobler natures than most of their masters, deeper
loyalty, greater sincerity, truer and more lasting cour-
age; much might and did come from companionship
with their primitive and guilt-proof natures; but the
fact that when associated with man they were destined
to serve, made such good impracticable and rather
brought out the mean and brutal tyranny of man than
helped to implant in his nature their own virtues.
Even with, such noble qualities as they had it was im-
possible for them to overleap the many ages their sys-
tems had lagged behind in other respects, the open
offensiveness of their grosser animal appetites and
needs, their lack of that great instrument and teacher
of the brain, a fully developed hand, and the inability
to foresee- beyond a few hours, days, or months. Nor
could any human process prolong their period of life
and postpone their day of dissolution. It was not a
good thing for these pioneers of the human race to see
the approach of death and its agonies in a being that
2 54 Limanora
could not assuage or postpone it. Still less beneficial
was it to touch the carcases and reduce them to harm-
less atoms. The presence of animals meant the daily
obtrusion of offensive sights that would either shock
or degrade their natures. All that animals could do
for them was already done by their science or their
machinery. Nothing that had fallen so far behind in
the race of life was worth the trouble of missionaryism;
for the energy that was in it had a better chance of
rising swiftly in the scale of existence by dissolution
and entrance into some other form.
None the less had they studied the language of ani-
mals when they had had the opportunity. It belonged
to the orchestration of the world, and all the sounds
of nature were of interest to them. They were in the
habit of visualising what they heard by a refined and
complicated instrument which they called a thinamar,
and had long been able to translate into its appropriate
form and colour every sound, inarticulate as well as
articulate. Through long use of this instrument the
tones of nature bore with them something that ap-
pealed to their eye. I never grew expert enough in
its use to make the visualisation of sound an instinct;
still less could I reverse the process. A modification
of their thinamar had enabled them to translate sights
into the symbols of sound, and by skill in using it they
had come to attach certain notes to certain sights.
Thus a noble landscape would appeal to their imagina-
tion not only through the eye, but in the form of music,
and they spoke of hearing the beauty of a star or a
flower. A section of this instrument did for compli-
cated sounds what the spectroscope, or inamar as they
called it, did for light. Every substance, every indi-
vidual living thing, had its natural and peculiar note;
My Education Continued 255
and the linamar analysed what seemed to me the sim-
plest sound into its constituent primary notes, each of
which revealed its source. Aided by their mikrakousts
and makrakousts, it enabled the I^imanorans to analyse
the chemical elements of any object, whether at a great
distance from them or too minute to appeal to their
senses.
Their makrakousts were instruments which by means
of electric currents and magnetism could make a beam
of light transmit any sound to its source, or make the
ear gather in the same way whatsoever sounds were
filling the air at any point on its course., I knew when
I saw a steady flash in any direction that the sound of
some point was getting tapped by one of these instru-
ments. Each had an apparatus for laying and keeping
fixed its luminous telegraph-wire along which it re-
ceived and transmitted. An application of this in the
gossip-telegraph enabled them to listen to the comedy
of life as it went on in any one of the adjacent islands
of the archipelago. Their mikrakousts used the same
means for gathering the faint sounds which echoed from
the clouds or through the upper regions of the atmos-
phere and turning them into loud notes, which might be
recorded, analysed, and interpreted. Their magnifying
power was quite equal to that of the clirolan. Faint
buzzings of insects at vast distances could be collected
and made as loud as thunder. It was even applied to
cosmic sounds that impinged on the atmospheric en-
velope of the earth. Mikrakoustic balloons rose into
the upper air, and after gathering whatever faint sounds
wandered thither from outside the world, were drawn
back again to divulge their secrets; eavesdroppers of
the cosmos they were, and perchance in some future
age they would enable the lyimanoran to listen to
256 Limanora
voices from other worlds or even to communicate with
the dwellers there. A more immediate and practical
advantage of these instruments was found in medicine.
They told in clear accents the unexpected or dangerous
changes in the tissues or organs of any man's system.
They were used in the weekly medical inspection^
which every member of the commonwealth underwent.
When the keen eye, aided by the camera-microscope,
could detect nothing abnormal in the body, the mikra-
koust would tell the examiner's ear of some obstruc-
tion or deleterious change; he knew the normal sounds
of healthy action in every part when they were mag-
nified thousands of times by this instrument, and every
departure from them readily caught the ear. All the
citizens were trained to use it as an aid in diagnosis, so
that they might be able to locate in the system any
beginning of disease. It was part of the training of
my ear to use the mikrakoust and to interpret its phy-
siological revelations.
But these instruments were getting antiquated by
the rapid development of the electric sense that could,
by the aid of their various electro-magnifiers and ana-
lysers, gather in cosmic news from distances which the
sense of hearing and its aids would count infinite.
Magnetic kites and balloons rose to the uttermost
fringe of our atmosphere, whither common terrestrial
influences could reach only in such faint waves as to
be neutralised; there they gathered the electric im-
pressions and impulses coming from other planets and
even other systems. On them were recorded the vary-
ing strengths of the waves and their direction. From
these records the astronomical families could tell what
was happening of a cosmic character in universes far
out of the reach of even their lavidrolans or camera-
My Education Continued 257
telescopes, — perturbations in the atmospheres of great
iinseen suns, collisions between worlds that circled
round them, births of new universes from these lost
systems, periodic disturbances of the routine revolutions
through the approach of some meteoric wanderer, the
settlement of life on worlds grown ripe for it, and the
death of outworn stars. For many generations had
they kept and classified these reports of cosmic history
and were beginning to recognise a wide periodicity in
many of them and to draw conclusions as to the path
of our universe through infinite space. It seemed to
them that there was some point far distant in the cos-
mos, round which our sun and its satellites with in-
numerable other systems of stars revolved, and that
this point, with its satellites, had its own independent
movement. Age by age, with the aid of their idrolans
or electric telescopes, and other electric instruments,
they felt that they were getting nearer and nearer to
the centre of this interwoven epicycloidal movement
and were almost convinced that it did not proceed in-
finitely, but that there was some ultimate centre which
had no movement round another. Their instincts told
them that this was the divine consciousness towards
which all things rose in the scale of being. They
never remitted their ardour and diligence in the de-
velopment of their electric sense and of the instruments
that aided it to become a receiver of cosmic news and
a recorder of cosmic history, for they were confident
that this was one of the tracks that led up through the
intricacy of the cosmos to God.
One of my greatest regrets was that my electric sense
could not follow the footsteps of these pioneers in the
infinite; it had but a dim consciousness of the reports
of their instruments, and train it as eagerly and dili-
258 Limanora
gently as I would, it lagged behind my power of vision
and even my sense of hearing. On this account I pre-
ferred to learn the results of their researches through
these two senses, for the electric reports were carefully
translated into appeals to the eye and the ear. I could
see their wonderful discoveries in the unknown, as they
worked them into picture and mechanism, and I could
listen from day to day to the orchestration of their
newly discovered spaces and movements. What seemed
at the moment an intolerable discord chimed in with
the notes which preceded or followed and formed mar-
vellous harmony. Not the least part of my education
lay in this cosmic stimulus to my imagination. Out of
my terrestrial conditions and limits I daily rose into
spheres which seemed to me more and more divine.
Sight and hearing became noble channels of the in-
fluences of infinity, instead of gross senses. I strug-
gled to bring my firla up to the enjoyment of their
labours, but ever fell back hopeless.
This was especially the case when I was brought to
examine and test their monalan or electrical distance-
analyst, for a fully developed electric sense was needed
to appreciate its refined analysis of impulses from far
distances. It was an ingenious application of an alloy
called by them labramor, or electricity sponge, and had
the power of splitting up any electric wave or impulse
into its constituent movements. Each of these had its
own clear and distinct effect upon the firla and varied
with the substance from which the impulse came or
through which it passed. All substances and elements
in the terrestrial system were classified according to
their electric impulses. Even before the Limanorans
brought the firla to its high state of sensitiveness and
efficiency, they had been able to examine the stars
My Education Continued 259
and other distant bodies and analyse their elements by
means of this classification and the application of their
alloy, labramor. Every substance or element had its
place in their tables according as it was positive or
negative in its electric impulse towards some other sub
stance or element; and all its afi&nities, strong or weak,
were tabulated. Thus when they turned their monalan
upon any distant body like a star they were able to
analyse its elements by means of these tables. Even
now that their firla interpreted the analysis of the
monalan without the intervention of classifications and
tables, they had another electrically analystic instru-
ment which appealed to the eye; this turned the elec-
tric impulse into a flash or glow, which at once revealed
in the inamar or spectroscope the substances or elements
whence it had come.
Their lower or more material senses I was more
nearly able to approach, even though they too were
highly intellectualised and were more the servants of
the spirit than of the animal part. In developing mine
I had more hope of raising myself to the lyimanoran
level, and yet there was less stimulus; for I felt that
they looked down upon these senses of smell, taste, and
touch because of their need of. close contact with their
objects; they were the primitive senses; they were
narrow and bound down to immediate matter, and
seemed poor gropers in the finite and the dark com-
pared with those rangers of infinity, the ear, the eye,
and the electric sense. It was then with a feeling of
humiliation that I saw those lower and more finite
senses in me develop so quickly, proving me a being of
a more primitive and material type.
Yet there was no neglect of these in their education
and no contempt for them and their uses; in fact con-
26o Limanora
tempt was one of the vices that they had with most
pains weeded out of their systems and civilisation.
They had not merely considered that nothing in crea-
tion, if looked into scientifically, was worthy of con-
tempt, but that contempt was the truest symptom of
crudity of character and ignorance of reality and na-
ture. Even if they had had any remains of this primal
Savagery, they would not have felt it towards those
finite-seeking senses. They only set themselves to
make them more and more the servants of the soul,
the instruments of the imagination. They rejected
the idea that the arts belonged only to sight and hear-
ing. Their arts of the firla were far more important
and striking than any sculpture or painting or music
could be. Not merely as a variation on these and a
relief from them did they have arts that brought in
the senses of smell and taste and touch; these had
their own special uses in their civilisation. All of
them, but especially smell and taste, were closely
linked with memory, and through memory with imagi-
nation. A special perfume and even a special taste
would flash before the mind a scene or fact with more
vividness than even a piece of music would.
The perfumes and tastes had been classified accord-
ing to their afiinity to certain virtues and ideas and to
the great deeds and scenes which best represented them.
The island was one vast flower-garden at all seasons of
the year, arranged not alone to please the eye, but to
bring by the suggestion of their perfumes the noblest
virtues and deeds constantly into the mind. For ex-
ample, wherever a child or youth was being trained,
the flowers possessing certain well-known scents which
were closely connected with the finest qualities and
ideas of the race shone profusely yet with striking art.
My Education Continued 261
The art of the gardening family did not consist merely
in arrangement of the landscape and the varied colora-
tion of it. The scent of every flower had to be taken
into consideration and the faint flavour or taste the
seed or fruit might produce in the air when sent adrift
or bruised. The problem of no science or art was so
complicated as that of gardening in this island, it had
to take account of so many senses, seasons, and con-
ditions of growth. They were never done with creat-
ing and selecting new variations of flowers and plants,
and colour, scent, and taste in the vegetable world were
as adaptable in their hands as tones in the hands of their
musical composers. Their task was made compara-
tively easy by the great development of methods and
appliances for rapid growth and decay. They had not
only complete command of the weather and clouds and
sunshine; but they could bring up and perfect flowers
in a few nights over vast areas by the use of their
streams and watering platforms and of artificial light.
When the lyimanorans slept, wonders were being ac-
complished in colouring the landscape; for first some
of their great rivers would pour refreshing rain all over
the plains; and then the electric glow, brought close
over the plants, would develop their bloom-producing
capacity. As careful were the gardeners that no
withering or dead vegetable matter should ever taint
the air of the island; the moment one set of blossoms
had perfected and shown traces of decay, an electric
pruner ran in a few minutes over the whole area, and
not merely cut them off, but burnt them to dust that
fell on the roots to stimulate the new growth of the
plants. As soon as the plants had passed their bloom-
productive point, an electric life-destroyer ploughed
lightly through the soil in all directions; and by the
262 Limanora
morning what had been profusely flower-coloured the
day before was brown earth, ready for the new plant-
growth of next day. The slow-growing perennials
and bushes and trees occupied separate and fixed
quarters at a distance from the residences and the great
centres of intercourse, and all rampant vegetation and
rotting boughs and leaves were daily turned into good
soil by the electric weed-destroyer. No decay was ever
allowed to approach the senses. Their knowledge of
the secrets of the soil made them independent of rotting
or offensi ve manures. The particular elements of which
any kind of plant or flower robbed the soil were ac-
curately ascertained, and their chemistry enabled them
with ease to supply the deficiency after a crop had
been removed.
The gardening family had to be familiar on the one
hand with the innermost secrets of psychology, and on
the other with the last discoveries of the more material
sciences; for no one could avoid the effects of the
flowers and trees, as he could painting and sculpture,
music and firlamai. Gardening, in short, was the most
public of all the arts and the most pervasive in its re-
sults. A garden (and in Limanora there was only one
vast garden) was a great mnemonic instrument, which
could play upon the souls of the whole community at
once. That it should not be in the hands of novices,
or of unwise or wrong-thoughted men and women, was
one of the prime cares of the people. Of all families
those that managed the garden of the island had to be
most simple-hearted and true, most sure in their know-
ledge of the human heart, and most eager to stir to
what is great and noble and humane. They were the
lords of the sense of smell, one of the most immediate
portals to memory and to imagination. To have the
My Education Continued 263
complete command of one out of the six dominant
sense-entrances to the soul was, they considered, the
greatest of responsibilities, and no care was neglected
in selecting, purifying, and training the families of
gardeners.
They, too, had the superintendence of Ilarime, a
structure devoted to the arts of smell, taste, and sound
combined. Aided by the musicians and the chemists,
they produced symphonies, which appealed to all three
senses and roused the imagination to exceptional
flights. The imaginative or pioneering families fre-
quented the halls of this great building daily in pursuit
of new stimulus to their faculty. Every chamber in it
had special emotions to rouse. A garden could have
only a mingled effect upon the memory and mnemonic
imagination ; Ilarime separated the effects and classified
the emotions and imaginative ideas which were to be
stimulated. Anyone entering could find out at the
porch, either by looking in the index-chamber or by
consulting one of the superintendents, what hall or
halls he ought to rest in. I had often during my edu-
cation to take refuge in Ilarime, when clogged in my
endeavours to advance by dulness of memory or im-
agination or by the weakness of some emotion. After
a time I did not need to consult a guide; I knew what
element in my soul was deficient and what emotion or
memory would stir it to activity, and by aid of the
index-hall and its graphic representation of the effect
of every chamber upon the spirit I could choose what
symphony I needed. As soon as I had entered the
hall that I had chosen, I lay down on one of their
hanging rests and shut my eyes. At once the medi-
cated atmosphere began to affect my palate, whilst
the delicate perfume entered my nostrils and my ears
264 Limanora
drank in the sweet-sounding music. Before many
minutes had passed memories of striking scenes I had
witnessed or heard of or seen represented in the island
began to rise in my mind, and the emotion I needed
thrilled me through; if it was heroism or courage, I
felt myself urged to deeds of valour; if it was benevo-
lence, I was soon inclined to rush to the help of the
suffering and the poor; if it was hope, I saw bright
visions of the future.
But this exercise was too passive to be allowed for
any length of time. The imagination and emotions
were apt to gain at the expense of the will and the
nervous energy by too frequent resort to Ilarime.
Strenuous endeavour was held to be one of the prime
essentials of progress, not only in the race, but even
more in the individual. And, though all the prevail-
ing odours and tastes and sounds of the island were
agreeable, the lyimanorans carried with them a small
instrument, called margol, that by an adaptation of
electricity could blunt at will the acuteness of smelling
and tasting and hearing, and, on the other hand, reduce
the powers of perfumes and flavours and sounds; it
acted by drying the air around the head and drawing
the moisture and heat from the nostrils, the tongue,
and the ears. It was partly to mitigate the force of
smells and tastes and sounds that they always kept the
atmosphere dry and cool by day. In the margol, too,
there was a combination of chemicals and electricity
which would modify any odour or flavour to suit the
taste; but if they wished to increase the strength of
any perfume or taste, they applied electric heat to the
source of it, and moistened the nostrils and the mouth.
It was one of the new peculiarities of the race that
the mucous and salivary flow was under the command
My Education Continued 265
of the will, and they could smell and taste with satis-
faction to themselves without the aid of moisture on
the organs.
Their senses of smell and taste had become by means
of their acuteness what they were originally meant to
be, the guardians of the throat and the digestion.
They told with accuracy the nature of the substances
brought to the mouth ; whatsoever would be deleterious
to the system was offensive. In most civilised peoples
what is grateful to the palate and the olfactory nerves
is often pernicious to some tissue of the body or some
faculty of the mind. Here the two senses were the
true friends and protectors of both body and soul ; there
was no seducing them or bribing them into evil or irra-
tional reports, so completely had they been saturated
with reason.
In the medical, chemical, and alimentary families
these senses were trained to a pitch that seemed to me
marvellous. By either smell or taste a member of these
families could tell the constituent elements of any
compound. A medical sage, if a man, could distinguish
by the faint odour that marked each human body
whether it was losing energy or expending it, making
progress or decaying; if a woman, the sage, in order to
make this decision, had as a rule to bring in the help
of taste; for it had remained from the primitive ani-
mal stage of man's development one of the differentiat-
ing marks of sex that the male had more energy of
smell, the female more energy of taste ; now that they
had so spiritualised their senses, perfumes formed the
quickest stimulus of the masculine imagination and
flavours of the feminine. At the food vats it was
always the Limanoran women who superintended the
flavouring of any compound; whilst it was the men
266 Limanora
who had most to do with medicating the atmospheres
of the chambers, and men presided in the chemical
laboratories. The historical origin of this distinction,
they thought, was on the one hand the development
of the acuteness of smell in male animals at rutting
time, and on the other the power in dams of recognis-
ing their own offspring by licking it with the tongue.
And it was a well-known maxim in their medical
families that every individual had a distinctive odour
and taste. They could tell one man from another in
the dark, and even at a considerable distance; and to
touch him with the tongue was to make assurance
doubly sure. The kissing that was so common in the
West as a symbol of friendship and love, like the rub-
bing of noses amongst less civilised peoples, had as its
origin and basis the recognition of the individual by
the taste or smell. They did not need so close or ma-
terial an investigation of the individual to have pleasant
memories of friendship aroused. Their methods and
symbols of companionship and love had become more
and more spiritual with the passion itself.
But, preternaturally acute though their senses
seemed to me to be, they would rely upon their de-
cisions no more than the modern scientist of the West
would rely upon his. Error, they held, was ever
maiming the conclusions from reports of the senses,
and they took every precaution in recording or using
their own perceptions. Accurate though their sense-
memory was, they had instruments which kept a per-
manent record of any report of the senses they meant
to use again. Not merely sounds and sights did they
automatically record, but perfumes, and flavours, and
electric impressions. Ages before, the inasan or re-
corder of light and the linasan or recorder of sound had
My Education Continued 267
been brought to a high pitch of perfection; all the
colours and forms seen in nature, at whatever distance,
could be kept in permanence on irelium-plates and re-
produced to the eye by the insertion of the plates in the
inasan and the reversal of the instrument. So was it
with sounds, however loud or faint; the linasan would
tell out to the ear music or speeches recorded hundreds
of years before down to the minutest tone. By a modi-
fication of these two instruments they took record of
the inner structure of things even at cosmic distances,
and of sounds which seemed to be intercepted by vast
material obstructions. The development of the re-
corders of the other senses had been more recent; not
till perfumes and tastes and electricity had begun to
enter largely into education and the stimulance of
memory did the necessity for such instruments arise.
In the earlier times before the purgation of the race
these instruments would have been a temptation to
new and epicurean vices. Now they were nothing if
not educational aids. The farosan or aromagraph
enabled the gardeners to arrange the mnemonic har-
monies of flowers as mere sense-memory could never
have done; it could reproduce any subtle perfume or
mixture of perfumes that had ever been experienced in
the island. The salosan or gustagraph gave incalcul-
able aid to the chemical and alimentary families; with-
out its permanencies of flavour they would have fallen
into daily errors in mingling the atmospheres of the
halls of sustenance and medication and those of Ilarime.
By its aid they could recall any of the tastes which
had made substances or compounds pleasing to the
palate. But it was the idrosan or electrograph that
was most needed; for the firla or electric sense had
been so recently developed that its reports as to the
268 Limanora
amount and quality of any electric impulse were most
untrustworthy. Without the aid of this recorder they
could never have compared the electric impulses of the
past with those of the present, nor could they have
been so accurate in measuring the electric powers of
-various substances.
They knew that the basis of all scientific advance
was accurate measurement. Their old measuring in-
struments had gradually been overtaken by their own
senses, and had to be replaced by others more and more
refined. In order to make sure that their senses in-
troduced no personal element into the reports and re-
presentations 'of their various delicate measurers, they
had invented an instrument which for fine adjustment
surpassed all of these. It was the airolan or senso-
meter, and by it the medical families in their weekly
review of every system in the community were enabled
to find the exact personal equation of each. It re-
corded the upper and lower limit of the various sens-
ations, the limit of endurance,' and the vanishing
point. Although there was a great evenness in the
development of the senses in the community, there
was yet considerable variation in the delicacy of per-
ception. One man was keenest in sight, another in
hearing, a third in the electric sense, yet there was a
certain constancy or proportion in all the senses of
every man, a proportion varying according to well-as-
certained laws with the hour and the season, the man's
age, and the temperature and health of his body. The
airolan tested, measured, and recorded the regular vari-
ations of each I^imanoran's senses, and thus he was
able to know how far he judged accurately anything
he perceived. By its aid he was able to know the exact
point at which he would need to call in any one of the
My Education Continued 269
various mechanical aids to the senses, the magnifiers,
or modifiers, or distance-reducers. By its means they
were able to gauge the proper mixture of colours and
proper size in architecture that would please at certain
distances. By its means, too, they could accurately
measure the distance from which any electric or lumin-
ous or somniferous impulse had come, when it struck
on the senses.
It was one of the commonplaces of their policy that
whatever could be done by machinery it was waste of
skill and energy to do by human labour and thought;
and instruments were generally more exact and reliable
than the senses and active powers of man, however
delicately developed and refined. Of course man's brain
and hand must still guide and superintend all instru-
ments and machinery, but his interference with their
automatic working was reduced to a minimum, in order
that the discount for personal equation should be as
little as possible. It was not, however, so much for
the sake of accuracy of result that mechanism was
substituted for human work, as for the sake of progress.
Every operation and function which could be performed
mechanically it was a slur upon human dignity to do;
and at once I,imanoran humanity was relieved from
the necessity, and the freed energy was applied to other
and nobler efforts towards progress.
During my education I had noticed again and again
with surprise that mathematics took no part in it. Not
once had I heard the subject mentioned by any of my
guides or •companions. I remembered the important
place it held in Western curriculums, and wondered
how the various scientific families could manage their
abstruse formulae and calculations without that science.
A people that laid so much stress on exactitude of
270 Limanora
research as an essential of all scientific progress were
surely lax to a degree in failing to train their youth in
the various branches of mathematics.
On having my senses tested by the airolan, the
thought came uppermost in my mind again; and my
proparents at last took notice of it, perhaps as the time
had arrived for enlightening me on the subject. They
led me to a vast museum-like building, crammed with
all kinds of small and intricate machines, not unlike a
kind of patent office, where the models of new inven-
tions are deposited for examination and comparison.
There was evident in the arrangement a careful classi-
fication according to elaboration and delicacy. In the
first section we entered there were the simplest of ma-
chines, having a few levers and cog-wheels, and a few
keys set in a keyboard; these were meant for the easier
rules of calculation, — addition, subtraction, multiplica-
tion, and division. We tested most of them and I
saw that they were infallibly accurate; never once
even in the longest and most intricate calculation was
there any error. In fact, these machines had been
first invented to avoid the constant errors that vitiated
important results when novices were set to work them
out. It was then found that not only did they rid
calculations of fallibility and the youth of heartless
drudgery, but they enabled the race to advance more
rapidly. They set free years of life, especially in the
formative stage, that had been wasted on mere routine
and mechanical work; and, best of all, they allowed
the tissues of young brains to be less rigid. It was
noted that, after the calculating machines were set
to work, the youth grew in mental and especially in im-
aginative power at twice the old rate. The elders of
the State were amazed at the result, prizing as they
My Education Continued 271
had done the effect of arithmetic in the discipline and
education of the young; indeed, it had been with
great regret that they saw the youth relieved of so
disciplinary an exercise; and they even thought of
making an exception to their usual utilitarian state-
principle, and training the boys and girls in rapid cal-
culation, although it would be of so little use to them
in their after-lives. But a few years convinced them
of the serious mistake they had made. The pace of
development so suddenly and greatly quickened in the
new generation that the result could be set down to
nothing else than the new freedom from calculatioas.
Their own faculties and imagination seemed stiff and
almost ossified compared to the ease and flexibility of
those of their sons and daughters. Invention and dis-
covery struck out with unprecedented energy, and the
ethical and emotional phase of imagination grew at a
marvellous pace ; new ideal realms were opened out for
morality and practical thought.
The experience threw a remarkable light upon a
phenomenon which had puzzled them for generations.
After the period of youth the members of the com-
munity had to specialise; and for some undiscoverable
reason those who devoted themselves to mathematics
and the working of abstruse formulae had been found,
able though most of them were, to be the most rigidly
unreasonable in the community; they refused to admit
that they could be mistaken in any of their judgments
or even opinions; nothing would move them, — neither
logical argument nor emotional appeal ; they assumed
that they had found absolute truth, and refused to
have compromise. In one generation in the far past
the mathematical families had to be exiled, so serious
an obstruction had they become to progress. Again
2 72 Limanora
they had been completely renewed, children of the
most noble-minded, freest, and most imaginative fami-
lies being substituted for the old members, and trained
to fulfil their functions; within a generation the result
was the, same; these scions of the finest of the race
became as narrow-minded and obstructive as their pre-
decessors had been. It seemed to be useless to change
the stock, and for some generations the community ac-
cepted their conservatism and obstinacy as inevitable;
they grew accustomed to smiling at the mathematical
families as " the omniscients."
«Why the true cause of this degeneracy had not oc-
curred to such a shrewd and logical people it is hard
to say; probably because they were so wedded by long
tradition and practice to the idea that mathematics was
one of the loftiest of sciences and one of the most es-
sential elements in education. They doubtless refused
to reconsider its claims or to abandon their inherited
reverence for it. But the discovery of the effect of
the calculative habit on the tissues of the brain at last
forced them to face the true cause of the infallibility of
the mathematical families. It was their occupation
that caused their degeneracy. Men began to pity them
for the slavery in which they had been so long held
and to devise means for their liberating. The old
habitual smile at the mention of their name became
sadness at the thought of what these members of the
race might have accomplished for its civilisation had
they not been so frozen in their tissues by the perpetual
use of formulae. They were amazed at their own dul-
ness in failing to see that men who dealt in such me-
chanical methods and exact results could not but be
mechanical themselves and easily fall into the fixed
mental attitude of the omniscient, and dealing with a
My Education Continued 273
world so unreal in its stiff, skeleton-like outlines could
not but fail in a world of conditions and compromises.
At first the prevailing idea was that all the studies
and sciences needing exactitude of formulae and result
should be neglected by the community. On ccnsidera-
tion it was felt that some of the most valuable stepping-
stones to the loftier ideals of the future would be
sacrificed if this were done. The other alternative was
chosen. The inventors who had made the calculating
machines were set on to find instruments which would
accomplish what the mathematicians had had to do for
the community. And, one after the other, the years
had produced them. Even differential and integral
calculus had been superseded by a series of machines
that with little guidance worked out all the applications
of their intricate formulae to the sciences. As we ad-
vanced from department to department we watched
these machines at work confirming the imaginative re-
sults of the phj'sicists, the chemists, and the astronom-
ers. The mathematical families were relieved of their
duties and distributed, and every member of the scien-
tific families was taught to use all these formulating
instruments. Their brain-energy was not monopolised
by calculations; the use of the machines was but a
routine detail in their wider intellectual life, and ab-
sorbed so little of their energy that it seemed to have
no effect on their faculties.
I was not many days in mastering the details of the
formula-machines; for I had paid some attention to
mathematics in my buried life and the memory of the
subject rapidly revived. I soon came to see the wisdom
of the I/imanorans in eliminating the study from their
scheme of education. It would have been the height
of extravagance to waste long periods of their lives in
2 74 Limanora
studying and doing what a machine could do better.
It was exactly the kind of work best done by a ma-
chine, for it had to do with a woild rid of all conditions
and, mathematically speaking, perfect. The inventors
were still busy making new and simpler machines for
the use of the scientists; and, though they had to know
the new mathematical formulae needed, they busied
their brains rather with their practical application and
with the machinery that would use them. It was
imagination in the practice of mechanics rather than
the mechanical use of methods and formulae that they
were engaged on. Hence it was that they avoided
the old unpracticality of the mathematical families, and
stood in no danger of thinking themselves infallible
and the only treasuries of absolute truth.
One of the most interesting departments of Minella,
as this great building was called, was that which con-
tained the measurers of time. I was somewhat sur-
prised that this department should exist, for I had
admired every day the power the I,imanorans had of
telling to a minute fraction the passage of time. Their
sense of time seemed to me to make watches and clocks
superfluous. Even when the sky was clouded over
and no heavenly body or light to be perceived, they
could tell the exact fraction of the day or night that
had passed, as I tested again and again by the watch I
had brought with me. Their knowledge of the natural
signs of the time of day or year had become instinctive
and automatic through long centuries of daily use.
The position and state of the petals of flowers would
at any moment by day or night, by shine or cloud, re-
veal to them the time. So would the temperature of
anything they touched, or, if it were highly contractile,
its size. But these external signs were quite unneces-
My Education Continued 275
sary. They had not to go beyond the sensations of
their own bodies to tell the time or season. They knew
by the intensity of the magnetism in them, by the
acuteness of their senses, by the amount of energy
they could command.
But their experiments needed far more exactness
than even their senses could afford. Time had to be
counted in their science not by mere seconds, but by
the hundred-thousandth, or even the millionth, part
of a second. One old-fashioned measurer of time was
based on the length of a wave of sound as it passed
through a vessel of water. The length of the vessel
contained a round number of moltas (their smallest
measure of length, perhaps about the millionth part of
an inch) ; the vibration in the water reflected a bright
light through a microscope and camera combined; and a
photograph of the pulsations imprinted itself on a strip
of irelium that kept moving with lightning swiftness
across the focus; this strip was divided into minute
sections, each of them corresponding to a lenta or mil-
lionth part of a second and numbered in order up to a
million. A newer clock had its principle based on the
length of a wave of light in a vacuum. Another and
more convenient clock, or rather watch, consisted of
an electric battery that kept a light irelium tongue
vibrating; this latter controlled a graduated mechan-
ism which pointed out on a face the exact lenta in the
time of day that it was. It was small enough to be
carried about on the person like a watch.
A similar microscopic minuteness of division appeared
in all their weights and measures. They could weigh
in their balances down to the million-millionth part of
an ounce. So with their measurement of heat and
cold ; their thermometers could test ten thousand times
'^I^^ Limanora
the range of temperature that their senses could bear,
although their power of endurance of fire and frost was
to me something miraculous; their furnaces were able
to volatilise the most refractory of metals and earths;
they could reproduce the conditions of the most glow-
ing suns, and also the temperature of the coldest
interstellar space, which, age by age, they were bring-
ing their frames gradually to bear with the aid of cer-
tain foods and combinations of elements. Thus did
they hope in some future age to subsist, even when
they ventured outside of the atmosphere of the earth.
All their measures were based on the decimal system,
the fundamental unit for microscopic measurements
being the amount of energy in an atom of one of their
elements, and that for cosmic measurements the energy
that would bring a beam of light from the sun's surface
to the earth's. They were able to see at a glance the
exact amount of energy in any phenomenon, to what-
ever sense it might appeal, and in their minds there
was ever a common measure for all types of force.
Their electrometers and magnetometers told not merely
the amount of electricity or magnetism in any machine,
material, or phenomenon, but the motive-power it would
have when applied to any purpose. They could com-
pare at a glance, without any elaborate calculations,
the advantages to be obtained from any substance when
using it as a force, whether through the electricity or
the heat or the gravitational power to be obtained from
it.
Especially useful was this common measure in deal-
ing with the power of light as separate from that of
heat. It was of great importance to them to know the
exact amount of energy even in a beam of light which
their eyes could not perceive. For they used sunshine
My Education Continued 277
as one of their great curative agencies, and the medical
families were constantly experimenting on the effect of
more or less light upon the microscopic life existing in
and around the human body. One of their own new
developments had been the consciousness of light all
over their skin; they could tell with eyes shut whether
it was the light of sun, stars, or moon, or an artificial
light which was falling on any part of their body; the
effect, even on the mind, differed completely in the four;
the sunlight, or at least a certain amount of it, gave
exhilaration or even joy; the starshine brought con-
templative melancholy; the moonbeam mildly stirred
the passions; whilst artificial light varied in its power
of exhausting brain and nerve energy with the material
or element that produced it.
Sunlight deprived of the intensity of its heat was to
them one of the essentials of life. Its bactericidal
power had been scientifically proved ages before, and a
family had been set apart for testing its effects both
qualitatively and quantitatively. It was not merely a
loose knowledge that they had acquired of the anti-
septic influence of sunshine. They had measured ex-
actly its power of depriving microbes of their deadliness
in the case of every disease; and they knew to a nicety
how strong or weak it would be needed in order to
check their ravages in any constitution, whether con-
centrated on a spot or diluted and spread as in a bath,
how long daily its application would be required, and
how many days. It was this family that superintended
the sunbaths in their halls of medication, and assisted
the medical sages in advising as to their use. It was
true that daylight, and especially that of a sunny day,
swept one third of the noxious life out of all water open
to its influence, whilst the rays of the sun bleached
278 Limanora
most bacteria of their pestiferous tendency. Yet used
indiscriminately sunshine became itself unwholesome,
because of the other forms of energy besides light that
it brought with it from the sun and the intervening
spaces. If not used with caution, it would destroy the
microscopic allies of human life in the body, rendering
feeble the phagocytes that devour the virulent microbes;
it would by its great heat injure the delicate tissues
of the brain, and by its magnetism and weight press
heavily on the nerves and the circulation. It was the
duty of the solometric family to rid it of its unwholesome
elements, and to indicate the exact amount and use of
it that would be beneficial in every state of the body.
Another of the duties of this family was to cultivate
colonies of microbes of the various diseases and make
them harmless by means of sunlight for use in inocula-
tions against their own unmodified bacterial kin. One
of their greatest aids in this process was the use of the
water of the sea ; wherever it did not kill the bacteria
completely, it emphasised the bleaching power of sun-
light over them and rendered them the allies of the
human system in its struggle against all disease and
decay. This sterilisation of disease was one of the
most important functions of the family. It was they
who led the flight-gambols of the Limanorans into the
outer fringe of the atmosphere, where they might drink
in the elixir of unadulterated sunshine; their guidance
and contrivances were needed even there, in order to
prevent the action of the other energies in the light
growing deleterious. Even moonlight and starshine
had their uses in the hands of this skilled family. They
could separate the deadly or poisonous elements of
moonbeams to help them in destroying bacterial life,
and leave only their healthy and inspiring tendencies;
My Education Continued 279
thus dealt with, the rays of the moon gave a stimulus
to the brain-tissues which worked up imaginative ma-
terials. And every star had, in their science, its own
peculiar influence, sometimes malign, more commonly
beneficial, when treated according to their wise dis-
coveries.
Little of all this would have been possible without
the iuolan or measurer of light, one of the most delicate
instruments they possessed. This was but a modifica-
tion of the human eye as it had been developed in their
bodies. It magnified the impression made on the lens
so that it should move a small mirror delicately hung
in vacuo; the reflection of this mirror ran along a
graduated scale on which it recorded by bleaching a
point of colour, the energy of light in the beam pro-
ducing the movement. This recorded not merely the
strength of the rays of which their eyes were conscious,
but that of many octaves of light outside of the range
of all human eyes. A more modern and delicate
form of the inolan used a microscopic camera as the
medium of measurement; this had accomplished new
wonders in the way of measuring the power of rays from
stars out of reach of the human eye. A third photometer,
recently invented and still untested when I visited the
collection of measurers, had made use of electricity in
collecting and testing the quality and energy of beams
of light.
In all of these forms of the inolan there was an ar-
rangement ,for ridding each ray of its heat and of other
forms of energy before it entered the lens ; a thermometer
measured the heat; and the other elements were ab-
sorbed and analysed by a subsidiary apparatus as the
beam approached the inolan. Another modification of
the apparatus had a prismatic arrangement attached to
28o Limanora
it, not unlike their inamar, and this broke up the beam
of light into its colour components; the inolan measured
each separate component, the length of its wave, and
the energy required to produce it, its camera also re-
cording in photographic form the metallic elements
through which the beam had passed. A more recent
modification, promising great results, was one which
by means of a vacuum-lens recorded the dark beams
that shone from unseen stellar bodies through the
corona of oiir own or other suns. When fully de-
veloped they expected this to reveal the secrets of the
darker depths of the heavens; the systems revolving
round the stars would stand out clearly with all their
elements for the investigation of the astronomic
families.
Nor did the extraordinary refinement of these instru-
ments, that were constantly being discovered, interfere
in any way with the development of Limanoran senses.
On the contrary they stimulated advance. Every new
aid to any sense pointed the way to its improvement;
and in a few years or generations this aid was rendered
almost superfluous and a new and more delicate ma-
chine must be invented; for the combination of so
many functions in the living body rendered the ob-
servations of any one sense less exact and trustworthy
than those of a machine which had but one purpose.
Thus the evolution of the senses kept up an unending
race with the evolution of fine machinery to aid them.
Even the roughest, most material, and least specialised
of all the senses, touch, had grown into something that
was most delicate in its manipulation; and one of the
most important parts of the education of my senses
was to refine and develop it. They had specialised it
to an astonishing degree. The lips, especially the
My Education Continued 281
outer edges of them, were able to distinguish the latent
energy in any substance applied to them; whilst a deli-
cate fringe of hair upon the upper lip, too minute to be
seen by ordinary eyes, revealed to them the movements
and character of gases and vapours that were so faint
in their- impulse as to be unrecognisable by the other
senses. The measurement of force had been raised to
a high point of exactness in their huge chests and
shoulders. Their hands, within certain limits, felt
temperature with the accuracy and minuteness of a
thermometer. And the prehensile and manipulative
skill of their fingers far surpassed that of the ablest
European conjuror I had ever seen. Without any in-
tention to outwit my senses, they would do things
with their hands so swiftly that I could not follow the
movements. It seemed to me at first as if they had
more joints in their fingers than other human beings,
so nimble were they; but this was not the case, al-
though the arm had greater scope of movement than
mine; in fact it seemed to move in the shoulder socket
as in a universal joint, so freely could it revolve in all
directions. Their joints were really more padded with
cartilage than mine, so that there was more flexibility
in the limbs along with greater firmness and strength.
Their nerves were also more magnetic than those of
other men, conveying the messages to and from the
brain and will-centres with far more swiftness and
certitude. Indeed, if I were to find any one point in
their systems which most differentiated them from
European, humanity, it was this increased and ac-
celerated nerve-energy. For a long time their rapidity
and ease of movement and action bewildered me;
whilst I was deliberating what was to be done, they
had done all that was needed. They had instruments
282 Limanora
for measuring the flash of thought from brain to hand
and of sensation from hand to brain, and when tested
at first, the swiftness of the message along my nerves
was not one tithe of theirs, but when niy education had
somewhat advanced, this disparity was reduced by
half. This advance was accomplished, not merely by
practice, but by variety of diet and medication, and
by living in a more magnetic atmosphere. I was often
borne aloft into the purer air that fringes the envelope
of our earth, and there, half-asleep, I drew into my sys-
tem the electric elements which went to the quickening
of my nerves. Down in the island everything that
would excite me was avoided; the muscles and the
other tissues of the body were exercised, whilst the
nerves completely rested. Then they would be given
gentle exercise of their own, to strengthen and make
them supple, without unduly stimulating them. I soon
began to feel the difference in the increasing nimble-
ness of my limbs and could move with more celerity
and ease. The fingers were quicker to follow the eye.
I grew what my old companions would have thought
unerring in my aim and would have made a deadly
shot with bullet or arrow in the wars of my native
country. What was still better, the tips of my fingers
came to be powerfully magnetic both in their apprecia-
tion of the electricity in any body they touched, and
in actively producing magnetic currents. I was even
able to cause a faint flash in the darkness by concen-
trating my will-power in my fingers, and waving them
in the air.
POSTSCRIPT TO LIMANORA
WHEN he had reached this point in his narrative,
a striking instance of the result of his educa-
tion occurred. It was getting towards the end of win-
ter, and we who had our rules of thumb for the changes
in the weather were looking for the equinoctial gales
that harbinger the approach of spring. The days were
lengthening, and the light of the sun was growing clear
and strong upon our high-perched huts.
We had noticed a certain distraction in his manner,
an absence of thought or of consciousness, when he
was describing the development of his magnetic sense.
And when he ceased for the night he could not rest
but paced uneasily along our platform of clifif which
overlooked the waters of the sound. The moon had
begun to wane, and our weather lore bade us look out
for storms at the beginning of her next phase. I could
not go myself to rest for thinking of his strange nar-
rative and the wonderful people he had sojourned
amongst. I sat up many hours writing out what I
could remember of his conversations and descriptions
while it was still clear in my mind.
Some time after midnight I looked out and saw the
silver moonshine on the still waters below and was at-
tracted by the beauty of the scene. I had thought
that be had retired, but I had scarcely seated myself
2S3
284 Limanora
on a projecting boss of rock that took in one of our
widest views, when his musical voice startled me out
of my reverie.
We fell into such sympathetic intercourse as the
beauty of night often stimulates in two sleepless spirits
meeting under the moon. He told me that the earth
was then tremulous with suppressed passion, and that
far off in his old home in the Pacific her heart was
about to break. He felt waves of magnetic feeling
pass through him, and they drew his soul back to
Ivimanora. He knew that the spirits he loved there
were yearning for him. For his heart quivered and
throbbed with full memories of all he had known and
experienced. There was anguish in the magnetic un-
dulance vibrating across his being. It was not merely
that a great storm was approaching; that he had
known for some days. There were human pulsations
in the ether which beat like an ocean upon his brain.
That was why he could not rest. If only he could
have his wings again, he would try to respond to the
call. But it was useless with the recrud&scence of his
muddier humanity to attempt return by such aerial
means. I ofi"ered to go with him on the morrow to the
nearest city and charter a ship to carry us to his former
home. But he would not listen to my proposal, and
bade me seek rest and sleep.
I began to feel that I was intruding on the privacy
of an agonised soul, and I bade him good-night and left
him to his own thoughts.
The exhaustion of overcharged emotion soon let me
drift into troubled unconsciousness. Dream followed
dream like hurrying clouds over the moon. At dawn
I wpke in nightmare. The hut was shaking. I thought
that I was still dreaming. But the swish of the rain
Postscript to Limanora 285
and the lashing of the tree-branches on the roof soon
made me understand. The calm of the night before
had given way to tempest; and the earth was sufEering
rupture.
I remembered the prediction of our guest, and rushed
to his hut. He was not there; nor could I conjecture
whither he had gone. I thought he had taken shelter
in the bush from the storm. Three days it lasted, and
then we were able to go out and search the drenched
forest. We followed up every track that he had been
accustomed to take. We went to all his favourite
haunts. But no trace could we find of him, though
days were spent on the search. Then we forced our
way through the dense undergrowth in several direc-
tions we had never seen him take; and at last we came
upon a yawning chasm, which had every appearance
of being newly opened. The precipitous side of the
mountain had split, and a vast landslip had swept
down it and filled the bottom of the gulf. We could
not resist the natural conclusion; this was the tomb of
our guest. After all his wanderings he had found
appropriate resting-place. The earth he knew so well
had taken him to her bosom.
BOOK II
The Limanorans
The Inner Life of a Self-Selected People
287
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Preface 291
Gi,ossARY 295
I.— Discoveries 299
II. — An Accident 339
III.— Death 354
IV.— An Epidemic 392
v.— I^iTERATURE 407
VI.— Inspiration 419
VII.— Pioneering 436
VIII.— Another Threat . . .... 487
IX.— PowTY 507
X.— The Manora and the Imanora .... 538
XI.— Ethics 554
XII.— A Warning 629
XIII.— Rewgion 654
XIV.— The Last Fwght 694
Ephogue 707
289
PREFACE
LATE in the autumn, when the memory of the
stranger who had told us so many wonderful
things had begun to lose its sharpness and we had
almost ceased to talk of him, we were startled by his
re-appearance.
We were in our tunnels, taking advantage of the dry
weather to get piles of our wash dirt out ready for sluic-
ing in the wet season, and were working till nightfall.
On a still, fair evening, which reminded me of the night
he vanished, we were returning jaded from our long
work and had just issued from the belt of bush that
fringed our clearing when the moon rose above the
peaks on the other side of the fiord and flashed a shuttle
of gold across the waters. Raising our eyes to our
huts, we stopped thunderstruck. Was that but a lunar
effect on the throne-like cliff in front of them ? It
could not be a spirit; we had never heard of ghosts in
these new lands, nor could the belief in them seize hold
of minds so accustomed as ours were to deal with the
rougher and more material elements of nature. We
shook off our trance, and stepped forward. The sound
of our footsteps made the figure move and as he turned
in the moonlight we recognised our lost friend (his
apparition, we first supposed). But he rose with his
old quiet and dignified salute of welcome, and joining
291
292 Limanora
us as we sat at our evening meal, we talked as if he
had parted with us only that morning. We had not
the hardihood to ask him what had become of him
these long months. But I noticed that he had more
of his old semi-transparency of tissue and ethereality of
hue, and in his eyes, as he ceased from talking, there
was a bafSed look I had never seen before in them.
He would lapse more frequently into deep reverie. He
seemed to have gone through a lifetime of effort and
suffering, and his spirit was, I could see, weary and
sore within him.
He shrank at first from all reference to his life within
the circle of mist out on the Pacific. It seemed now
to be a painful memory. There was a pathos in his
tone as he spoke far keener than I had noted in it be-
fore. But gradually I drew him into reminiscence of
it when we were alone in the bush, and he seemed after
a time to find consolation in thinking and speaking
about it, especially when he talked of the spiritual side
of the civilisation in the midst of which he had lived
for so many years.
In the long nights of that last winter he resumed his
narrative again. He seemed to have difficulty in find-
ing English expression for what he had to tell, but I
encouraged him in our wanderings around the fiord to
repeat and interpret and explain what he had told
us. Gradually the narrative found a more intelligible
language, and I was able to jot down notes that I
understood. I have done my best to throw them to-
gether into the form that they ultimately found in his
story as he told it to us sitting together in our hut.
But I am still puzzled and sometimes confused by many
of the ideas and feel that they have baffled my best
skill to put them into our tongue. Some of his de-
Preface 293
scriptions awakened in us a sense of incredulity, and
others shook our old world of beliefs to its foundations.
But we were drawn to him by the noble and ingenuous
way in which he told us all; indeed, were often fasci-
nated and blinded as we listened. We could not but
accept his story as the highest truth we could hear in
this world, and yet we were struck dumb by its strange-
ness. Much of our bewilderment we attributed to the
difiBculty of understanding his strange speech, and
more to our own ignorance of the intricate problems
that have troubled sages. We have kept back this
latter part of his story for a time in order that by study
and care we might make it more intelligible and more
suited to the thoughts of Christendom. But we have
to acknowledge ourselves still baffled by the impossible
task of making this road through difficult regions plain
and easy, and so have resolved to issue the narrative
with all its faults upon it.
Godfrey Sweven.
GIvOSSARY
AitoMO — The astrobiological families.
AiROLAN — A sensometer, or instrument for finding the per-
sonal equation of a man.
Al,Cl,lROi.AN — Radiographic cinematograph; an instrument
combining microscope, camera in vacuo, and electric
power.
AlfarEnE— Oxygen shrub.
Ammerwn — Historoscope.
ClRAl^AlSON — Museum of terrors.
Clevamoi^an— Combination of telescope and makrakoust, or
distance-hearer.
CUMOLAN — Earth-sensor.
CUROLAN — Instrument that combines electro-microscopy and
photography.
CwROiyANic — Infinitesimally microscopic.
CoREAl,EENA — Vacuum-engine car.
DooMAi,ONA— The hill of farewells.
DuOMOVAMOl,AN- -Instrument that interprets the music of the
cosmos.
ErFai,EENa — Anti-gravitation flight-car.
FaleEna — Ship of the air.
Farfai,eena— Electric faleena.
Farosan — Aroma-recorder.
FiAi,UME — The valley of memories
Fllscale it rose, the nimbler it became.
But in order to rise it had to be yoked for a time with
a lower form, which it used as medium and leverage,
leaving it as soon as it had accomplished its due devel-
opment. All things tended to rise above themselves;
and it was the greatest of disasters, the very reversal of
nature, if ever they should fall back, as they often did.
What we call death was but the unyoking of a higher
energy from a lower, which it had temporarily made
its comrade and medium. It was no misfortune or
degradation, but a step higher in enfranchisement.
The animate resisted this step, because one member
in the lifelong partnership refused to descend into
a grosser transformation again. In the human, the
nobler the thought-energy, the higher it strove to raise
itself before the inevitable divorce from its lower
medium and yoke-fellow. But when the time of sever-
ance approached, it mastered the reluctance of the
lower, and yearned to be set free. And little wonder
364 Limanora
that the lower resisted; for back it had to fall in the
cosmic order, and begin again its slow progress upward
from grade to grade; first into the clutches of myriads
of microscopic disintegrators of its tissues that would
transform it into food for plant-life, and then by weary
stages upwards through vegetable and animal tissue,
perchance into the sustenance of thought again.
This people, I soon found, had overcome the ancient
abhorrence of death. For they identified their life and
personality with the higher of their energies, and not
with the lower and bodily forms. They shrank, it is
true,, from all that would lead to the divorce of the
yoked energies of any animate being before its due
time; not so much because they thought this an evil
for the victim as because the perpetration would im-
plant in the doer a germ of retrogression. To be cruel,
to shed blood, was the beginning of degradation of the
soul; it was one of the acts that allowed the lower to
take command of the higher in their system. But for
a Limanoran himself to approach death became, when-
ever he saw it to be inevitable, the keenest joy, in spite
of the farewells it entailed. He knew that thereafter,
should he make effort to live, he would only clog the
wheels of progress, he would only be a burden on the
race instead of its helper. Amiralno never showed the
slightest sign of shrinking from the dissolution of his
life-bonds. He was sad to leave his lifelong mate, with
whom he had done so much for the race; but he knew
that she would soon follow him; it was a matter of
but a few days or months; her thought-energy would
mingle and commune with his again, freed from the
material trammels that checked and dulled their inter-
course in their terrene life; upwards through the ether
Death 365
their souls would climb, ever becoming purer and
swifter in their flight.
But, as I went about my duties, my thoughts would
break away to the coming death-scene and sadness
would cloud them. I remembered the last farewells of
my buried life, and most of all the watch over the
fading light in my mother's eyes. Nothing could burn
out of my memory the bitterness of at last facing the
inevitable. Slowly had I been led by the physician to
realise that nothing could save her, and still I hoped
against hope, checking my tears lest she should see
them and conjecture my alarm. Only when the lips
became silent and pale did I at last admit the thought
that this was death. How could I stifle my grief
longer ? Were we not all to each other, this mother,
who had clung to me and nursed me through sorrows
and misfortunes, I her only child, who had refused to
leave her for the seductions of great place and fortune ?
She was vanishing for ever from me, and nothing I
could do would bring her back. I was caught and
crushed by the iron hand of fate and stood in stony
silence, paralysed by my grief and my impotence.
There was too much of the man and the stoic in my
young blood to cry out; but if only I could give up my
own life to bring hers back! In one of her final wak-
ing dreams she prattled and wept over me as if I were
a child again, saved once more from the clutching
breakers. Raising herself with a wild cry from her
pillow, she held me in her arms with fierce love; only
for a moment; then the cords that bound her life
brake; the memory had torn her heart. There she
lay, all that I cared for on earth, rigid, uncaring. If
but I could have died with her there! Alas, the life in
me was too puissant to yield, the nerves too tough to
366 Limanora
break! The passion came on me to hurl myself into
her grave as the clods fell. It was but an insensate im-
pulse. I made no cry or sign till I got into the lonely
chamber; and there God alone knows how I survived
my hurricane of grief and desolation. Nor could years
ever root out the sorrow. There in Limanora, with an
abyss between me and my past, and a noble new life
around me, I worked and wept. The wound had
opened afresh. Was I never to commune with that
loving loved spirit again ?
There was a touch on my hand, and the magnetism
of sympathy and consolation flowed through my sys-
tem. It was Thyriel. She had felt my deep grief,
though then at a great distance from me, and without
noise or speech she had come to my side. So absorbed
had I been in my past and my sorrow that I knew not
her presence till her magnetic touch awakened me from
my dream. She had realised in a moment whither my
thoughts had gone, and reverenced the holy past.
Then, when the mood was growing despotic and para-
lysing the soul, she stepped into the startled silence. I
was myself again, and swept the unmanly tears away.
Yet I could not drive the sadness of farewell out of
my system. Here was this sage, who had so often
counselled me and guided my faltering footsteps, about
to vanish for ever from the scene of his triumphs.
Oblivion would sweep his memory and his work into
the abyss. We would see him no more; no more hear
his grave wise sayings, weighted with the experience of
centuries. All his gathered knowledge and skill would
lapse; and our civilisation would be the poorer. Up
the steep of progress it would have to climb, weaker for
the absence of this strong arm, this much-exercised and
full brain and heart.
Death z^j
These were the thoughts at the root of my sadness,
when I was startled out of them by my companion's
voice. She had waited in reverential silence as long as
I lived my filial past over again ; but, when I returned
to my starting-point, and began spending fruitless re-
grets and pangs over that which neither demanded nor
warranted them, her thoughts broke out into loud
protest. She could no longer endure such futilities,
such waste of tissue, and she met my wailing reflections
one by one. Amiralno was glad to leave his chrysalis
stage of existence; the energy that was in him would
find a freer scope, a nobler sphere, as soon as it had
shed its earthly trammels. His counsel and guidance
would not be lost to progress; all that he was and had
would still be part of what he would become; not one
thought or faculty would be left behind; and all would
then be spent not on the progress of a little island of a
small terrestrial archipelago or its race, but on that of
the universe, if not of the cosmos. All of him that
could still appeal to our lower senses would remain
with us, and would immortalise his memory, as far as
immortality would go upon this ephemeral orb. As for
his sympathy and love, they were doubtless still with
us, or at least with what in us was best and nearest the
cosmic. The only thing to regret was that we could
not personally feel his presence in the universe. But
even this was not for idle regrets. It was mere palsy,
if it did not stir us to still further mastery of our con-
ditions. Were we not in the way to feel and know the
escaped, spirits of our dead ? Had we not developed
senses in us that were receivers of impulses from the
infinite around us, impulses that had been dormant
through the uncounted past ? Had we not instru-
ments that told us of energies and beings unfelt even
368 Limanora
by our new-developed senses? And were we to
grope in our prison-house, and wail over what we
had lost and could not longer see ? Were we to sit
in the darkness, and weep and wait, hoping for the
light ? Such feeble conclusions from the past, such
futile regrets over the dead, Linianoran progress could
not endure. There were new masteries for every gen-
eration. Before many years could pass they would get
into touch with the spirits and energies that had fled;
it might be by means of new instruments; it might be
by new senses; nothing but our own dulness broke the
connection between our energies and theirs; what we
had still to win was consciousness, if not mastery, of
that finer type of matter which they now used as
medium for their energy. It was only the lifting of
another of the myriad veils that hung before our senses
dulling their perceptions. This was no more than
what they had done a thousand times already. A death
was a stimulus to joy and new effort. It taught us the
limits of our knowledge and our power; and limits
known were limits soon to be overpassed.
Her bright activity and banter surprised me into
laughter at my own folly and obtuseness. Scarcely
had I reached this consummation before I knew that
there was gladness in the air of the island. How could
I have failed to notice the jubilant strains that were
fitfully wafted across my hearing, unless through my
dull absorption in my own feelings ? I felt thankful
to Thyriel that I had been drawn out of my isolation,
which seemed to me now little less than disloyalty to
the race that had done so much for me.
I wondered what could be the occasion of all this
exultation that I was conscious of. Paean after paean
Death 369
rose from every part of the island, and, as the moments
passed, the many-sounding music seemed to gather to-
wards one centre. The radius lessened, and adjacent
masses of melody fused together. Nearer and nearer
they came, ever more coalescing and lessening in num-
ber; then the jubilance melted into grave and massive
harmony, and I recognised some of the world-music I
had heard from the cosmophone. The sense of uni-
verses creating and dissolving sprang into my mind. It
was the diapason of creation that was ringing through
the island. I,oud, then low, the cosmic symphony
swept the amosphere like a tempest. I knew that some
far-reaching event or movement was occurring amongst
this people.
I turned to my comrade to confirm and define ray
conjectures, but she was gone. Away on the horizon
I could see the rapid beat of her wings. I followed as
swiftly as I could, and, as I rose in the air, I saw com-
pany after company soaring like coveys of birds towards
a high isolated plateau that stretched from far up I