WINDMILLS A BOOK OF FABLES BY GILBERT CANNAN NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. MCMXX COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. PRINTED IN U. S. A. TO D. H. LAWRENCE 2Q80261 . . a huge terrible monster, called Moulinavent, *who, with four strong arms, waged eternal battle iuith all their divinities, dexterously turning to avoid their blows, and repay them iuith interest. A TALE OF A TUB CONTENTS SAMWAYS ISLAND, i I TlTTIKER, 3 II THE BISHOP, 5 III ARABELLA, 7 IV THE SKITISH NAVY, 10 V CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS, 15 VI HOSTILITIES, 16 VII SlEBENHAAR, 1 8 VIII MORE OF SlEBENHAAR, 22 IX SlEBENHAAR ON WOMEN, 24 X LOVE, 26 XI Music, 26 XII ADRIFT, 29 XIII HUNGER, 31 XIV MILITARY, 31 XV NAVAL, 37 XVI NATIONAL, 38 XVII REUNION, 41 XVIII BETROTHAL, 42 XIX REACTION, 44 XX HOME, 46 ULTIMUS, 49 I THE SON OF His FATHER, 51 II QUESTIONS, 53 X CONTENTS III CIVILISATION, 57 IV WAR AND WOMEN, 62 V WIRELESS, 65 VI BICH is OBSTINATE, 67 VII PLANS, 72 VIII IN FATTISH WATERS, 74 IX AN AFTERNOON CALL, 77 X THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN, 80 XI HIGH POLITICS, 82 XII THE PUBLIC, 87 XIII THE EMPEROR, 89 XIV WAR, 93 XV SlEBENHAAR ON SOCIETY, 97 XVI PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS, 98 XVII PEACE, 102 XVIII THE RETURN OF THE ISLAND, 104 GYNECOLOGIA, 107 I HISTORY, 109 II CASTAWAY, 112 III MY CAPTOR, 114 IV THE CHANGE, 117 V THE HOMESTEAD, 121 VI OBSEQUIES, 124 VII SLAVERY, 127 VIII A STRANGE WOOING, 128 IX THE RUINED CITY, 130 X THE OUTLAWS, 132 XI EDMUND, 135 XII THE NUNNERY, 138 CONTENTS XI XIII IN THE CAPITAL, 142 XIV THE EXAMINATION, 146 XV MEN OF GENIUS, 149 XVI REVOLUTION, 153 OUT OF WORK, 159 I MR. ELY'S HEART BREAKS, 161 II MR. BLY is IMPRISONED, 162 III THE DARK GENTLEMAN, 163 IV THE DARK GENTLEMAN'S STORY, 165 V COGITATION, 167 VI CONFLAGRATION, 167 VII TIB STREET, 169 VIII MR. ELY'S SERMON, 171 IX THE EFFECT OF MR. ELY'S SERMON, 173 X THE WIDOW MARTIN, 173 XI MAKING A STIR, 175 XII MAKING A STIRABOUT, 176 XIII SPARKS FLYING, 177 XIV SMOULDERING, 178 XV SUCCOUR, 178 XVI ON THE ROAD, 181 XVII JAH, 183 XVIII JAH SPEAKS, 185 XIX SONG, 1 86 XX MORNING, 187 XXI HOPE, 187 PREFACE TO AMERICAN EDITION PROPHECY of an event is unlikely to be interest- ing after it and this may be the reason why my pro- phetic utterances regarding the Great War took the form of Satire. The first of these fables has a his- tory. It was published originally in London as a lit- tle orange-covered booklet, called Old Mole's Novel and it was issued simultaneously with Old Mole, a character to whom I was so attached that it gave me great pleasure to attribute authorship to him. Only a small edition was printed and it soon ran out of print. A copy of it reached Germany and fell into the hands of a group of young men who were incensed by the nonsense the high-born Generals and Admirals were talking in the Reichstag and I re- ceived enthusiastic letters asking for more so that these caustic prophecies might circulate in Germany and serve as an antidote. That was more encour- agement than I had received in England and so, for my German friends, who had the advantage of living under a frank and not a veiled Junkerdom, I com- posed the remaining fables and finished them a few months before the outbreak of war. The trans- xiii XIV PREFACE lation was proceeded with but so far as I know the book was never issued in Germany. It appeared in England early in 1915 and this intensely patriotic effort of mine was condemned as unpatriotic because we had already caught the German trick of talking of war as holy. It sold not at all in its first expen- sive edition because it was not a novel, nor an essay, nor a play and the British public had no training in Satire, but I have since had letters from both sol- diers and conscientious objectors saying that the book was their constant companion and solace, and I have recently learned that in a certain division of the British Army it was declared to be a court- martial offense for any officer to have the book in his possession, presumably on the principle that the soldier must not read anything which his superiors cannot understand. That of course was good for the sale of the book and the cheap edition also ran out of print just about the time when the shortage of paper produced a crisis in the affairs of authors and publishers. The book was useful to me when the time came as evidence that my objection to war was not an objection to personal discomfort, the element of danger, owing to my ill health, not arising as a point at issue, though that would not have made any dif- ference to my position. My objection to war is that it does not do what its advocates say it does, and PREFACE XV that no good cause can be served by it. Good causes can only be served by patience, endurance, sympathy, understanding, mind and will. The attempt to remove militarism and mili- tary conceptions from among human preoccupations is a good cause and that I will serve with the only weapon I know how to use the pen, which they say is mightier than the sword or even the howitzer. Having applied myself to this service before the outbreak of the Great War, which for me began in 1911, I was not to be diverted from it by the panic confusion of those who were overtaken by the ca- lamity rather than prepared for it. With Wind- mills, my essay on Satire, my critical study of Samuel Butler, the Interlude in Old Mole, I was an active participant in the Great War before it began, but of course no one pays any attention to a prophet, espe- cially when he is enough of an artist to desire to give his prophecy permanent form. That indeed was my mistake. Had I thundered in the accents of Horatio Bottomley instead of clipping my sen- tences to the mocking murmur of satire I might have been a hero to some one else's valet, not having one of my own. Peace has her Bottomleys no less re- nowned than war, but I am afraid I am not among their number, for I have long since returned to the serious business of life, the composition of dramatic works, and I am in the position that most ensures xvi PREFACE unpopularity, that of being able to say ' I told you so.' I am a little alarmed when I consider how closely the Great War followed my prophecy of it and turn to the fables, Gynecologia and Out of Work, which follow logically from the other. A world governed by women as lopsidedly as it has been by men would be much like that depicted here, and the final collapse, if it came, would surely follow the lines indicated in Out of Work. None of us knows exactly of what we are a portent and who can imag- ine to what Lady Astor's flight into fame may lead? If I had not already dedicated this book to my friend D. H. Lawrence I would, without her permis- sion, inscribe upon it the name of the first woman to take her Seat in the worst club in London, the House of Commons. GILBERT CANNA.N. New York, 1919. Samways Island I: TITTIKER GEORGE SAMWAYS awoke one night with a vague distressful feeling that all was not well with his island. The moon was shining, but it was casting the shadow of the palm tree in which he slept over the hollow wherein he cooked his meals, and that had never happened before. He was alarmed and climbed down his palm tree and ran to the tall hill from which he was accus- tomed to observe the sea and the land that floated blue on the edge of the sea. The ascent seemed longer than usual, and when he reached the summit he was horrified to find a still higher peak before him. At this sight he was overcome with emotion and lay upon the earth and sobbed. When he could sob no more he rose to his feet and dragged himself to the top of the furthest peak and gazed out upon an empty sea. The moon was very bright. There was no land upon the edge of the sea. He raised his eyes heavenwards. The stars were moving. He looked round upon his island. It was shrunk, and the forests were uprooted and the little lake at the foot of the hill had disappeared. Before and behind his island the sea was churned and tumbled, as 3 4 WINDMILLS it was when he pressed his hands against the little waves when he went into the water to cleanse him- self. And now a wind came and a storm arose; rain came beating, and he hastened back to the hole in the ground he had dug for himself against foul weather. Then, knowing that he would not sleep, he lit his lamp of turtle oil and pith and read Titti- ker. Tittiker was the book left .to him by his father whom he had put into the ground many years be- fore, even as he had seen his father do with his mother when he was a little child. He had been born on the island, and could just remember his mother, and his father had lived long enough to teach him how to fish and hunt and make his clothes of leaves, feathers, and skins, and to read in Tittiker, but not long enough to give him any clue to the meaning of the book. But whenever he was sad it was a great solace to him, and he had read it from cover to cover forty times, for it was like talking to somebody else, and it was full of names and titles, to which he had attached personages, so that the is- land was very thickly populated. Through Titti- ker he knew that the earth moved round the sun, that the moon moved round the earth and made the tides, that there were three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, seven days in the week, and that SAMWAYS ISLAND $ printing is the art of producing impressions from characters or figures. II: THE BISHOP WHEN, the next morning, he crawled out of his lair he saw a man strangely clad in black, with a shiny corded hat on his head and an apron hanging from his middle to his knees, gazing up into his palm tree and down into his kitchen. The man in black saw him and, in the language of Tittiker, said: " Alas, my poor brother! " " Are you my brother? " asked George. The man in black stepped back in amazement. " You speak Fattish? " he cried. " I have had no one to speak to for many years," replied George; "but my father spoke as you do." " Let us pray," said the man in black, kneeling down on the sands. "Pray? What is that?" " To God. Surely you are acquainted with the nature of God? " The word occurred in Tittiker. " I often wondered what it was," said George. " Ssh ! " said the man in black soothingly. " See ! I will tell you. God made the world in six days and rested the seventh day. ..." 6 WINDMILLS " It took me nearly six days to dig my father's grave, and then I was very tired." " Ssh ! Ssh ! Listen. . . . God made the world in six days, and last of all he made man and set him to live in his nakedness and innocence by the sweat of his brow. But man ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge and became acquainted with original sin in the form of a serpent, and his descendants were born, lived and died in wickedness and were re- duced to so terrible a plight that God in His mercy sent His son to point the way to salvation. God's son was crucified by the Jews, was wedded to the Church, and, leaving His bride to carry His name all over the world and bring lost sheep home to the fold, ascended into Heaven. But first He de- scended into Hell to show that the soul might be saved even after damnation, and He rose again the third day. His Church, after many vicissitudes, reached the faithful people of Fatland, which for all it is a little island off the continent of Europe, has created the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. The Fattish people have been favoured with the only true Church, whose officers and appointed min- isters are deacons, priests, rural deans, prebendaries, canons, archdeacons, deans, bishops, archbishops. I am a Bishop." " All that," said George, " is in Tittiker." And he recited the names and salaries of six dio- SAMWAYS ISLAND 7 ceses, but when he came to the seventh the Bishop blushed and bade him forbear. " That," he said, " is my diocese." And he swelled out and looked down his nose and made George feel very uncomfortable, so that to bridge the difficulty he went back to the Bishop's story. " I like that," he said. " And Hell is such a good word. I never heard it before." " Hell," replied the Bishop, " is the place of dam- nation." " Ah ! my father used to say ' damnation.' ' "Ssh!" " There is something about Jews in Tittiker, but what is original sin? " The Bishop looked anxiously from left to right and from right to left and in a very low, earnest voice he said : " Are there no women on your island? " III: ARABELLA EVEN as the Bishop spoke there came round the point a creature than whom George had not even dreamed of any more fair. But her garments seemed to him absurd, because they clung about her nether limbs so as to impede their action. She came with little steps toward them, crying: 8 WINDMILLS "Father!" "My child! Not dead!" 44 No, dear father. I have been drying my- self over there. I have been weeping for you. 'I thought I was the only one saved." " So I thought of myself. What a wonderful young woman you are ! You look as if you were going district visiting, so neat you are." George was staring at her with all his eyes. Never had he heard more lovely sounds than those that came from her lips. " My daughter, Arabella," said the Bishop. She held out her hand. George touched it fear- fully as though he dreaded lest she should melt away. 44 I like you," he said. " I'm so hungry," cried Arabella. 44 1 could eat an ox," declared the Bishop. George produced a kind of bread that he made from seeds, and the leg of a goat, and went off to the creek near by to fetch some clams. He also caught a crab and they had a very hearty breakfast, washed down with the milk of cocoanuts. The Bishop had explained the situation to Arabella, and she said: 44 And am I really the first woman you have ever seen!" 44 1 had a mother," replied George simply, " But SAMWAYS ISLAND 9 she was not beautiful like you. She dressed differ- ently and her legs were fat and strong." " There, there ! " said the Bishop. But Arabella laughed merrily. The Bishop told how they had been with nineteen other Bishops and their families upon a cruise in the steam-yacht Oyster, each Bishop engaging to preach on Sundays to the lay passengers, and how the pro- peller had been broken and they had been carried out of their course and tossed this way and that, and finally wrecked (he thought) with the loss of all hands, though the wireless operator had stuck to his post to the last and managed to get off the tidings of the calamity with latitude and longitude into the air. It all conveyed very little to George, but it was an acute pleasure to him to hear their voices, and as they talked he looked from one to the other with a happy, friendly smile. He was very proud to show his island to his vis- itors, but distressed at the havoc wrought by the storm, and he apologised for its unusual behaviour in moving. " It has never done it before," he explained, and was rather hurt because Arabella laughed. He showed them where, as far as he could remem- ber, his father and mother lay buried, and he took them to the top of the hill, and to amuse them 10 WINDMILLS caught a goat and a little kind of kangaroo there was in the forest, and a turtle. He displayed his hammock in the palm tree and showed how he curled up in it and wedged himself in so as not to fall out, and promised to prepare two other trees for them. They demurred. The Bishop asked if he might have the lair, and Arabella asked George to build her a house. He did not know what a house was, but looked it up in Tittiker and could find mention only of the House of Swells and the House of Talk. Arabella made a little house of sand; he caught the idea and spent the day weaving her a cabin of palm branches and mud and pebbles. He sang whole passages from Tittiker as he worked, and when it was finished he led Arabella to the cabin and she smiled so dazzlingly that he reeled, but quickly re- covered himself, remembered as in a vision how it had been with his mother, flung his arms round her neck and kissed her, saying: " I love you." " I think we had better look for my father," said Arabella. IV: THE SKITISH NAVY FOR three nights did the Bishop sleep in the lair and Arabella in her cabin. A grey scrub grew on the SAMWAYS ISLAND II Bishop's chin, and during the daytime he instructed George solemnly and heavily as he delivered him- self of his invariable confirmation address, (on the second day he baptised George in the creek, and Arabella was delighted to be his god-mother) with an eager pride as he told him -of the Skitish Isles where his diocese and the seat of the Empire lay. The United Kingdom, he said, consisted of four countries, Fatland, Smugland, Bareland, and Snales, but only Fatland mattered, because the Fat- tish absorbed the best of the Smugs and the Barish and the Snelsh and found jobs for the cleverest of them in Bondon or Buntown, which was the greatest city in the world. He assured George that he might go down on his knees and thank God now that he was baptised for having been born a Fattish- man, and that if they ever returned to Bondon he would receive a reward for having added to the Skitish Empire. George knew all about the Emperor-King and his family, and liked the idea of giving his island as a present. He asked the Bishop if he thought the Emperor-King would give him Arabella. " That," said the Bishop, " does not rest with the Emperor-King." " But I want her," answered George. Thereafter the Bishop was careful never to leave his daughter alone, so that at last she protested and 12 WINDMILLS said she found Mr. Samways very interesting and was perfectly able to take care of herself. So she was, and next time George kissed her she gave him a motherly caress in return and he was more than satisfied; he was in an ecstasy of happi- ness and danced to please her and showed her all the little tricks he had invented to while away the tedium of his solitude, as lying on his back with a great stone on his feet and kicking it into the air, and walk- ing on his knees with his feet in his hands, and thrusting his toe into his mouth. He was downcast when she asked him not to repeat some of his tricks. On the fourth day, for want of any other employ- ment, the Bishop decided to confirm George, who consented willingly when he learned that Arabella had been confirmed. The ceremony impressed him greatly, and he had just resolved never to have any- thing to do with Original Sin when a terrifying boom broke in upon their solemnity. Some such noise had preceded the detachment of the island, and George ran like a goat to the top of the hill, whence, bearing down, he saw a dark grey vessel belching smoke and casting up a great wave before and leaving a white spume aft. Also on the side of the island away from his dwelling he saw two sticks above water, and knew, from the Bishop's descrip- tion, that it must be the steam-yacht Oyster. He hastened back with the news, and presently the ves- SAMWAYS ISLAND 13 sel hove in sight of the beach, and it conceived and bare a little vessel which put out and came over the waves to the shore. A handsome man all gold and blue stepped out of the little vessel and planted a stick with a piece of cloth on it on the sands and said: " I claim this island for the Skitish Empire." ' This island," said the Bishop, " is the property of Mr. George Samways." " Damme," roared the man in gold and blue, " it isn't on the chart." " Mr. Samways was born here," said Arabella with the most charming smile. ' Yes." George saw the man glance approvingly at Arabella and was anxious to assert himself. " Yes, I was born on the island, but it broke loose in a storm." The officer roared again, the Bishop protested, the men in the boat grinned, and at last Arabella took the affair in hand and explained that her father was the Bishop of Bygn and that they had been in the ill-fated Oyster. The officer removed his hat and begged pardon. They had received messages from the Oyster, but the bearings were wrongly reported. Sighting land not marked on the chart, they had decided to turn in to annex it, but, of course, if Mr. Samways were a Skitish subject that would be unnecessary, and 14 WINDMILLS hum, ha ! All's well that ends well and it was ex- tremely fortunate. Arabella said that Mr. Samways was not only a Skitish subject but a member of the Church of Fat- land, and would be only too pleased to hand over his island to the Colonial or whatever office might de- sire to govern it. Mr. Samways was, so far, the island's whole permanent population and would gladly give all particulars. For herself she was only anxious to return to Fatland, and was excited at the prospect of travelling on board one of the Emperor- King's ships of war. Meanwhile would Mr. " Bich." would Mr. Bich stay to luncheon? Mr. Bich stayed to luncheon. In the afternoon he made a rough survey of the island, sounded the surrounding waters, declared that movement had ceased, and that so far as he could make out the island was fast on a submarine reef, with which it had collided so violently that a promontory had cracked and was even now sinking, and with it the Oyster. Careful examination of the shore on that side of the island revealed no more than the bodies of two Lascars, two nailbrushes, a corded silk hat, a Bible, a keg of rum and five tins of condensed milk. In that awful shipwreck had perished nineteen Bishops and their families, a hundred and ten members of SAMWAYS ISLAND i$ the professional and trading classes, the crew, the captain, mates, and a cat. They stood there on that wild shore amid the sol- itude of sea and sky, the Skitish officer, the Bishop, Arabella, and George Samways, and their emotions were too deep for words. V: CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS THE ship lay-to, and, while the Captain and Mr. Bich discussed the island in the language of their trade, the Bishop, whenever possible, preached a sermon, or discoursed on the beauties of nature; but Arabella took George under her protection, had his hair cut and his beard shaved, and with a smile bought of the youngest sub-lieutenant a suit of his shore-going clothes, a set of shirts, collars, and all necessary under-garments. George found them most uncomfortable, but bore with them for her sake. As the result of the eloquence of Mr. Bich the Captain went ashore and returned to report that, the promontory now having sunk to the depths of the ocean, a very decent harbour had been made and the island would be valuable to the Empire as a coaling- station. His pockets were bulging when he came aboard, and Arabella elicited from Mr. Bich that 16 WINDMILLS the island was rich in precious stones and metals, and that the pebbles of which her cabin had been built were emeralds and aquamarines such as had never before been seen. Arabella told her father, and he bade her say nothing, adding impressively: " We must protect Mr. Samways' interests." But George was thinking of nothing but the best means of obliterating Mr. Bich, upon whom it seemed to him that Arabella was casting a too fa- vourable eye. VI: HOSTILITIES As the ship steamed away from the island the smoke of another vessel was sighted. It was signalled, but no reply was hoisted. There was great excitement on board and the chief gunner said: " Let me have a go at them." The Captain stood upon the bridge, a figure of calm dignity with a telescope to his eye. Mr. Bich explained to Arabella and George that the ship was a Fatter ship, and that the Fatters had lately been taking islands on the sly without saying anything to anybody, because they were jealous of the Skitish Empire and wanted to have one too. "Do islands make an Empire?" asked George. " Anything you can get," replied Mr. Bich. SAMWAYS ISLAND 17 The Fatter ship was making for the island. After her went the grey vessel, and it was a nose-to- nose race who should first reach the harbour. The Fatter ship won. The grey vessel fired a gun. The gig was lowered and the Captain, looking very grim and determined, put off in her. . . . Arabella dropped a pin and it was heard all over the vessel. It was a relief to all on board when the Bishop knelt and offered up a prayer for the Captain's safety. The Amen that came at the end of it brought the tears to George's eyes, and his blood ran cold when it swelled into a cheer as the Captain's gig broke loose from the Fatter ship and came tearing over the smooth waters. The Captain's face was very white as he stepped on deck and called Mr. Bich and the other officers to his state-room, and whiter still were the faces of Mr. Bich and the officers when they left it. The vessel shook with the vibration of the engines : there was a strange and stormy muttering among the men : the vessel headed for the open sea. George was taken to his cabin and locked in. He lay down on the floor and tried to go to sleep. A roaring and a rumbling and a banging and a thudding made that impossible. The shaking made him feel so sick that he wished to die. Near by he could hear Arabella weeping, and that was more than he could bear. He thrust and bumped against his door and worked l8 WINDMILLS himself into a sweat over it, but it seemed that it would not give. As he reached the very pit of de- spair, the door gave, the floor gave, the walls heaved in upon him; in one roaring convulsion he was flung up and up and up, and presently came down and down and down into the sea. It tasted salt and was cool to his sweating body and he was glad of it. VII: SIEBENHAAR HE was not glad of it for long, because he soon be- came very cold and was nipped to numbness. He assumed that it was the end, and felt a remote regret for Arabella. Other thought he had none. When he came to himself he was, or seemed to be, once more in the room from which he had been so violently propelled, but there were two men stand- ing near him and talking in a strange tongue. Pres- ently there came a third man who spoke to him in Fattish. " Hullo! Thought you were done in," said the man. George stared. " Done in. Dead." " Yes, I was." The man laughed. " Funny fellow you are. Eyes just like a baby." SAMWAYS ISLAND 19 " Where is Arabella?" asked George. " Where ami?" " Give you three guesses," said the man. "On a ship?" " Right." " The Emperor-King's ship? " " No. The King-Emperor's. You have the honour to be the first prisoner in the great Fattero- Fattish war." "War? What is that?" 'War? You don't know what war is? Have you never read a newspaper?" " I have only read Tittiker. It tells about a War Office, but I never knew what it was for." " My name's Siebenhaar, engineer and philosoph- ical student, and I fancy you are the man I have been looking for all my life. You should be capable of a pure idea. ..." " What," asked George, " is an idea? " Siebenhaar flung his arms around him and em- braced him and recited a long poem in his own lan- guage. " You shall be presented at the Universities! " he said. " You shall be a living reproach to all writers, thinkers, artists, and I, Siebenhaar, will be your humble attendant." " Did I say anything unusual? " "Unusual? Unique! Colossal! The ultimate 20 WINDMILLS question! 'What is war? What is an idea?' Ach?" George insisted on an explanation of the meaning of war, and then he asked why the Fattish and the Fatters should be intent upon mutual destruction, and also what the difference between them might be. " Difference?" said Siebenhaar. "The Fattish drink beer that you can hold; the Fatters drink beer that runs through you. That is all there is to it." With that he sent for some Fatter beer and drank a large quantity himself and made George taste it. He spat it out. " Is that why they are making war? " Siebenhaar smacked his lips. " Man," he said, " is the creature of his internal organs, almost, I might say, their slave. The lungs, the heart, the kidneys, the stomach, the bladder, these control a man, and every day refashion him. If they do their work well, so does he. If they do it ill, then so does he. Each of the organs has se- cretions which periodically choke their interaction, and bring about a state of ill-humour and discom- fort in which the difference between man and man is accentuated, and their good relations degenerate into hatred and envy and distrust. At such times murders are committed and horrible assaults, but frequently discretion prevails over those desires, suppresses them but does not destroy them. They SAMWAYS ISLAND 21 accumulate and find expression in war, which has been led up to by a series of actions on the part of men suffering from some internal congestion. Mod- ern war, they say, is made by money, and the lust for it. That is no explanation. No man becomes a victim of the lust for money except something inter- feres with his more natural lusts: no man, I go so far as to say, could so desire money as to become a millionaire except he were const " " But what has this to do with beer? " interrupted George. " I'm coming to that," continued Siebenhaar. " Beer taken in excess is a great getter of secre- tions, and man is so vain an animal as to despise those whose secretions differ from his own. What is more obvious than that the implacable enemies of the Eastern hemisphere should be those whose drink is so much the same but so profoundly different in its effects? Internal congestion may bring about war, but in this war the material is undoubtedly sup- plied by beer. And I may add, in support of my theory, that once war is embarked upon, those en- gaged in it suffer so terribly from internal disorgan- isation as to become unanswerable for their actions, and so mad as to rejoice in the near prospect of a violent death. Moltke was notoriously decayed in- side and the state of Napoleon's internal organs will not bear thinking on." 22 WINDMILLS George protested that he had never heard of Napoleon or Moltke, and Siebenhaar was on the point of embracing him, when, muttering something about Fatter beer, he rose abruptly and left the room. VIII: MORE OF SIEBENHAAR " THERE is a woman aboard," said Siebenhaar when he returned. " I suppose you have never seen a woman? " *' Two," said George simply. Siebenhaar slapped his leg. " Have you any theory about them? " he asked. "Theory? I don't know what theory is. I loved them. I put my arms round their necks and rubbed my face against their soft faces. It was very nice. I should like to do it every night before I go to sleep. I should like to do it now." " You shall," said Siebenhaar, and he went out and came back with Arabella. George leaped from his berth and flung his arms round her neck and embraced her, and she was so surprised and delighted that she kissed him, and Siebenhaar wept to see it. " I don't know who you are, madam," he said, " but if I were you I should stick to that young man SAMWAYS ISLAND 23 like a barnacle to a ship's bottom. I would creep into his heart and curl up in it like a grub in a ripe raspberry, and I would go down on my knees and thank Heaven for having sent me the one man in the modern world who may be capable of a genuine and constant affection. You have him, madam, straight from his mother's arms, with a soul, a heart, as vir- gin as I hope your own are." Arabella disengaged herself from George's now ardent emlbrace, drew herself up, and with the haugh- tiness of her race, said: " My father was a bishop of the Church of Fat- land." " That," said Siebenhaar, " does not exempt you from the normal internal economy of your sex or its need of the (perfectly honest) love of the opposite sex. My point is that you have here an unrivalled opportunity of meeting an honest love, and I im- plore you to take it." " I would have you know," retorted Arabella, " that I am engaged to my late father's chaplain." " War," said Siebenhaar, " is war, and I should advise you to seek protection where it is offered." " If you would hold my hand in yours," said George to Arabella, " I think I should sleep now. I am so tired." Arabella held George's hand and in two minutes he was asleep. 24 WINDMILLS IX: SIEBENHAAR ON WOMEN ' THERE are some," said Siebenhaar, " who regard women as a disease, a kind of fungoid distortion of the human form. But only the very lowest species are hermaphrodite, and the higher seem to be split up into male and female for the purpose of repro- duction without temporary loss of efficiency in the task of procuring food. The share of the male in the act of reproduction is soon over, and among the wisest inhabitants of the globe the male is destroyed as soon as his share is performed. Human beings are not very wise: they have an exaggerated idea of their importance; and they are reluctant to destroy the life of their kind except in occasional outbursts of organised homicide such as that on which we are now engaged. The share of the female entails the devotion of many months, during which she needs the protection of the male, whom, for that reason, and also because she hopes to repeat the perform- ance, she retains by every art at her disposal. Hence has arisen the institution of marriage, which pledges the male to the protection of the female and their offspring. Whether a moral principle is engaged in this institution is a question upon which philosophers cannot agree. It is therefore left out of most systems of philosophy. Mine is based on SAMWAYS ISLAND 2$ my answer to it, which is that there is no moral prin- ciple engaged. Morality is for the few who are capable of it. Few men have the capacity for ideas, but all men love women, except a few miserable de- generates, who prefer a substitute. There is no idea in marriage. It is an expedient. Sensible communities admit of open relief from it; in duller communities relief has to be sought in the byways. And still no moral principle is engaged. It is a mat- ter only of supplying the necessities of human nature. Now, love is a different affair altogether. Love is an idea, a direct inspiration. It alone can transcend the tyranny of the internal organs and lead a man not only to perceive his limitations but within them to create beauty, and creative a man must be directly he becomes aware of the heat of love in the heart of a woman. There is no other such purging fire, none that can so illuminate the dark places of the world or so concentrate and distil such lightness as there is. All evil, I have said, comes from congestion; to release the good a purge is necessary, and. there is no purge like woman. Therefore, madam, I do most solemnly charge you to tend the fire of love in your heart. Never again will you find a man so sensible to its warmth (most men can see no difference between love and indigestion) Oh, madam, discard all thoughts of marriage, which is an expedient of prudence, which is cowardice, of 26 WINDMILLS modesty, which is a lure, of innocence, which in an adult female is a lie, to the winds, do exactly as you feel inclined to do, and love. Madam " But by this Arabella was asleep. She had sunk back against George, her lovely tresses lay upon his shoulder, and her hand clasped his. Siebenhaar wiped away a tear, heaved a great sigh, took his beer-mug in his hand and crept away on tip-toe. X: LOVE XI: MUSIC ON deck was a band playing dirge-like dragging hymns, for the Admiral of that ship was a very pious man and believed that the Almighty was personally directing the war against the enemies of Fatter- land, and would be encouraged to hear that ship's company taking him seriously. No sooner did Siebenhaar set foot on deck than he was arrested. The Chaplain had listened to every word of his discourse and reported it to the Admiral, who de- tested Siebenhaar because he was always laughing SAMWAYS ISLAND 27 and was very popular with the crew. Word for word the Chaplain had quoted Siebenhaar's sayings, so that he could deny nothing but only protest that it was purely a private matter, a series of opin- ions and advice given gratuitously to an interesting couple. " Nothing," roared the Admiral, " is given to the enemies of our country." ' We are all human," said Siebenhaar. " I was carried away by the discovery of human feeling amid the callousness of this pompous war." The Admiral went pale. The Chaplain shud- dered. The officers hid their faces. " He has spoken against God's holy war," said the Chaplain. " That's all my eye," said Siebenhaar. " Why drag God into it? You are making war simply be- cause you have so many ships that you are ashamed not to use them. The armament companies want to build more ships and can invent no other way of getting rid of them." " God has given us ships of war," said the Chap- lain, " even as He has given us the good grain and the fish of the sea. Who are we that we should not use them? " The sub-Chaplain had been sent to discover the effect of Siebenhaar's advice upon the enemies of Fatterland. The accused had just opened his mouth 28 WINDMILLS to resume his defence when the sub-Chaplain re- turned and whispered into the ear of his chief. " God help us all ! " cried the Chaplain. " They are desecrating His ship ! " There was a whispered consultation. George and Arabella were brought before the court, and if George was the object of general execration, Ara- bella won the admiration of all eyes, especially the Admiral's, who regarded his affections as his own particular, private and peculiar devil and was now tempted by him. The Chaplain held forth at great length; the Admiral grunted in apostrophe. Only Siebenhaar could interpret. He said: " They say we have blasphemed their God of War. I by giving advice, you by acting on it. It is not good to be fortunate and favoured among hun- dreds of mateless males. It will go hard with us." " And Arabella? " asked George. " They will keep Arabella," replied Siebenhaar. They were silenced. A boat was stocked with corned beef, biscuits, and water. George and Siebenhaar were placed in it and it was lowered. The band resumed its play- ing of dirge-like dragging hymns, and through the wailing of the oboes and the cornet-a-piston George could hear the sobs of Arabella. SAMWAYS ISLAND 29 XII: ADRIFT " Now/' said Siebenhaar, " you have an opportunity to exercise your national prerogative and rule the waves." George made no reply. His internal organs were supplying him with an illustration of Siebenhaar's theory. The waves did just as they liked with the boat, sent it spinning in one direction, wrenched it back in another, slipped from under it, picked it up again and every now and then playfully sent a drenching spray over its occupants. Siebenhaar talked, sang and slept, and, when he was doing none of these things, ate voraciously. " I insist on dying with a full stomach," he said when George protested. George ate and slept and thought of Arabella, when he could think at all. " Death," said Siebenhaar, " must be very sur- prising: but then, so is life when you penetrate its disguises and discover its immutability. We hate death only because it is impossible to pretend that it is something else, so that it comes at the end of the comedy to give us the lie. After this experience I think I shall change my philosophy and seek the truth of life with the light of death. You never know: it might become fashionable. Women like 30 WINDMILLS their thoughts ready-made, and they like them bizarre. Women are undoubtedly superior to men. ..." But by this time George was in such a state of dis- comfort that he lay flat on his face in the bottom of the boat and groaned : " I am going to die." " Eat," said Siebenhaar, " eat and drink." And he offered corned beef and water. " I want to die," moaned George, and he wept because death would not come at once. He hid his face in his hands and howled and roared. Sieben- haar himself ate the corned beef and drank the water, and went on eating and drinking until he had exhausted all their supply. Then he curled up in the bows and went to sleep and snored. And the waves changed their mood and gave the boat only a gentle rocking. George opened his eyes and gazed up into the sky. It was night and the stars were shining brilliantly. Red and yellow and white they were and they danced above him. He was astonished to find that he did not wish to die. He was very hungry. He crawled over to Siebenhaar and shook him and woke him up. There was neither food nor water in the locker. " In the great cities of the civilised world," said Siebenhaar, " there are occasional performers who go without food for forty days. We shall see." SAMWAYS ISLAND 31 _ " I am thirsty," whimpered George. ' Those occasional performers," returned Sieben- haar, " drink water and smoke cigarettes, and they are sheltered from the elements by walls of glass. We shall see." With that he turned over and went to sleep again. XIII: HUNGER GEORGE'S face was sunk and his eyes glared. Sie- benhaar tried to spit into the sea, but it was impos- sible. He was daunted into silence. Another day began to dawn. " If this goes on," said George in a dry whistling croak of a voice, " I shall eat you." And he glared so at Siebenhaar's throat that the philosopher turned up his coat collar to cover it. XIV: MILITARY AT dawn a shower of rain came. They collected water in George's boots. They had already eaten Siebenhaar's. Thus revived, George stood up, and on the edge of the sea saw blue land and little white sails. They came nearer and nearer, and presently they were de- 32 WINDMILLS livered by a little vessel that contained one white man and ten negroes. Neither George nor Sieben- haar could speak, but they pointed to their bellies and were given to eat. " I recant," said Siebenhaar. " There is nothing to be learnt from death, for death is nothing. The stomach is lord of life and master of the world." With that he recounted their adventures and the reason for their being in such a woeful plight. The master of the ship, on learning that Sieben- haar was a Fatter, said that he must deliver him up as a prisoner when they reached Cecilia, the capital of the Fattish colony which they would see as soon as the fleet for it was a fishing fleet turned into the bay. " As a Philosopher," said Siebenhaar, " I have no nationality. As an engineer but I am no longer an engineer. The Admiral and the Chaplain will have seen to that. My life is now devoted to Mr. Samways, as in a certain narrower sense it has nearly been." And he told the master of the ship how George was by birth the proprietor of the island in dispute between the two nations, and how the island shone with precious stones and glittered with a mountain of gold. The master's cupidity was aroused, and he agreed to grant Siebenhaar his lib- erty on the promise of a rich reward at the conclu- sion of the war. He was a Fattishman, and could SAMWAYS ISLAND 33 not believe that there would be any other end than a Fattish triumph. A pact was signed and they sailed into Cecilia, the governor of which colony was Siebenhaar's cousin and delighted to see him and to have a chance of talking the Fatter language and indulging in philo- sophical speculations for which his Fattish colleagues had no taste. He welcomed George warmly on his first entry in a civilised land, and was delighted to in- struct him in the refinements of Fattish manners: how you did not eat peas or gravy with your knife, and how (roughly speaking) no portion of the body between the knees and shoulders might be mentioned in polite society, and how sneezing and coughing and the like sudden affections were to be checked or disguised. George talked of Arabella and the won- derful stir of the emotions she had caused in him. Colonel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch (for that was his name) was greatly shocked, and told how in the best Fattish society all talk of love was forbidden, left by the men to the women, and how among men the emo- tions were never discussed, and how, since it was im- possible to avoid all mention of that side of life, men in civilisation had invented a system of droll stories which both provided amusement and put a stop to the embarrassment of intimate revelations. However, as George's vigour was restored by the good food he ate in enormous quantities, he could 34 WINDMILLS not forbear to think of Arabella or to talk of her. He spoke quite simply of her to a company of officers, and they roared with laughter and found it was the best story they had ever heard. When the officers were not telling droll stories, they were playing cards or ball games or boasting one against the other or talking about money. George asked what money was, and they showed him some. He was disappointed. He had ex- pected something much more remarkable because they had been so excited about it. They told him he must have money, and Colonel Sir Gerard Schwein- fleisch gave him a sovereign. A man in the street asked George to lend him a sovereign and George gave it to him. The officers were highly amused. The adventurers had not been in Cecilia above a week when the town was besieged and presently bombarded. Except that there was a shortage of food and that every day at least thirty persons were killed, there was no change in the life of the place. The officers told droll stories and played cards or ball games or boasted one against the other or talked about money. They ate, drank, slept, and quarrelled, and Geo-rge found them not so very much unlike himself except that he was serious about his love for Arabella, while they laughed. He asked Siebenhaar what civilisation was. Said the philos- opher with a wave of his hand: SAMWAYS ISLAND 35 " They have built a lot of houses." " But the ships out there are knocking them down." ' They have made railways from one town to an- other." ' " But the black men have torn the railways up." (For the native tribes had risen.) Said Siebenhaar: " No one can define civilisation. It means doing things." "Why?" " Thou art the greatest of men," replied Sieben- haar, and his face beamed approbation and love upon his friend. But to put an unanswerable question to Siebenhaar was to set him off on his theories. " First," he said, " the stomach must be fed. Two men working together can procure more food than two men working separately. That is as far as we have got. Until the two men trust each other we are not likely to get any further. Until then they will steal each other's tools, goods, women, and squabble over the proceeds of their work and make the world a hell for the young. When one man steals or murders it is a crime : when forty million men steal, murder, rape, burn, destroy, pillage, sack, oppress, they are making glorious history, a lot of money, and, if they like to call it so, an Empire. But Empire and petty thefts are both occasioned by 36 WINDMILLS the lamentable distrust of the two men of our postu- late." " But for Arabella," said George, " I could wish I had never left my island." News of the war came dribbling in. The island had been twice captured by the Fatter fleet, and twice it had been evacuated. The Patters had suf- fered defeat in their home waters but had gained a victory in the Indian seas. Came news that the is- land had again been captured, then the tidings that the whole of the Fatter fleet and army was to be con- centrated upon Cecilia and the colony of which it was the capital. " Why? " asked George. " Because a new reef of gold has been discovered up-country." The bombardment grew very fierce. From the mountain above the town ships of war could be seen coming from all directions, and some of them were Fattish ships, but not enough as yet to come to grips with the Fatter fleet. The inland frontiers were attacked but held, though with frightful loss of life. Then one night from the Fatter fleet came a landing party, and Col- onel Sir Gerard Schweinfleisch called a council of war, and the officers sat from ten o'clock until three in the morning debating what had best be done. At half-past one the landing party were only a SAMWAYS ISLAND 37 mile away. A shell burst in the street as George was walking to his lodging and three men were killed in front of him. It was the first time he had seen such a thing. It froze his blood. He gave a yell that roused the whole town, ran, was followed by a crowd of riff-raff seizing weapons as they went, and rushed down upon the enemy, who had stopped for a moment to see two dogs fighting in the road. They were taken by surprise and utterly routed. There is no more rousing episode in the whole mil- itary history of Fatland. George was for three days the hero of the Empire. He received by wireless telegraphy countless offers of marriage, ten proposals from music-hall engagements, and by cable a demand for the story of the fight from the noble proprietor of a Sunday newspaper. It was impossible to per- suade that noble proprietor that there was no extant photograph of Mr. Samways, and a fortune was spent in cablegrams in the fruitless attempts to do so. XV: NAVAL As it turned out the concentration on Cecilia was a fatal tactical error, directly traceable to the King- Emperor, who had never left the capital of Fatter- land and had been misled by certain telegrams which had been wrongly deciphered. The entire Fattish 38 WINDMILLS navy was collected upon the bombarding fleet and utterly destroyed it. George and Siebenhaar watched the engagement from the mountain above Cecilia. It was almost humorous to see the huge vessels curtsey to the water and so disappear. It was astonishing to see the Fat- tish admiral surround nine of his own vessels and cause them also to curtsey and disappear. " What in hell," said George, who had by now learned the nature of an oath, " what in hell is he doing that for? " " That," said Siebenhaar, " is for the benefit of the armament contractors. A war without loss of ships is no use to them." And suddenly George burst into tears, because he had thought of all the men on board, and was over- come with the futility of it all and the feeling that he was partially to blame for having been born on his island. XVI: NATIONAL THE Fattish are an emotional race. They had over- come the Fatters, and the only outstanding hero of that war was George. They insisted on seeing George. They clamoured for him. They sent a cruiser to fetch him from Cecilia, and the com- SAMWAYS ISLAND 39 mander of that cruiser was none other than Mr. Bich, who had won promotion. His astonishment was no less great than George's, but his adventures were less interesting. After the destruction of the ship he had been saved by a turtle which had been attracted by his brass buttons and had allowed him to ride on his back so long as they lasted. He had had to give it one every twenty min- utes, and had just come to his last when he was seen and rescued. He had thought himself the only sur- vivor, and when he heard that Arabella also had been delivered from the waves there came into his eye a gleam which George did not like. The voyage was quite monotonously uneventful and George was glad when they reached Fatland. The Mayor, Corporation, and Citizens, also dogs and children, of the port at which he landed, turned out to meet him; he was given the freedom of the borough, and a banquet, and at both ceremony and meal he was photographed. In Bondon he was given five public meals in two days. He was so bewildered by the number of peo- ple who thronged round him that he left all arrange- ments in Siebenhaar's hands, and Siebenhaar liked the banquets. He was received by the Emperor-King and deco- rated, and the Empress-Queen said: " How do you do, Mr. Samways? " 40 WINDMILLS He was followed everywhere by enormous crowds, and outside his lodgings there were always ten police- men to clear a way for the traffic. His romantic his- tory had put a polish on his fame : the motherless and fatherless orphan, all those years a