The New Gulliver

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Title:     The New Gulliver
Author: Barry Pain [More Titles by Pain]

CHAPTER I

(The first few pages of the account of his travels by Mr Lemuel Gulliver, junior, have unfortunately been damaged by fire and are for the most part illegible. They contain reference to a sea-fog and to a shipwreck. He appears to have escaped by swimming, and his record of the number of days he spent in the water and the distance covered verges upon the incredible. His statement that he lived principally upon the raw flesh of those sharks which made the mistake of attacking him will also be accepted with reserve by those who remember the latitude in which the Island of Thule is traditionally placed. The legible and consecutive manuscript begins with his arrival at the island.)

I now wrung the water from my clothes as well as I might, and spread them on the rocks in the sun. After an hour, perhaps, I was so far recovered from my exertions that I thought I might now see what manner of island this was to which my ill-chance had brought me. Donning my clothes again I climbed up the low cliff.

The land that now lay before me appeared to be for the most part flat and bleak in character. There were long stretches of sand and coarse grass, and here and there a group of stunted shrubs. Presently, in the far distance, by the aid of my perspective-glass, I made out several cultivated plots, but nowhere could I detect any building which might serve as a human habitation. At one point, which I guessed to be about two miles away, a column of smoke arose, as if from the interior of the earth. This I imagined to be of volcanic origin, but it puzzled me not a little that the land should be under cultivation and that yet I could find not so much as a single house or cottage.

So intent was I upon my survey of the distance that I did not note the approach of a human being until I heard the footsteps close beside me. I speak of it as a human being, but in many respects the creature differed from humanity as previously known to me. Particularly noticeable was its manner of progression. It walked very slowly and laboriously on all fours, the arms being longer and the legs shorter than in the normal man. Its body was clothed in two garments of a thick grey woollen material, and loose boots with tops of a similar material, but with leather soles, were worn both on the hands and feet. The size of the head was disproportionately large and seemed too heavy for the slender neck. It was bald save for a fringe of scanty grey hair. Large spectacles of high magnifying power distorted the eyes, and the toothless mouth was absurdly small. The grotesque object was more likely to inspire laughter than fear, for the body was small and its movements slow and feeble, but indeed it showed not the slightest sign of hostility.

"I see," said the creature, "that you are from the old world. Who are you?" He spoke in a gentle voice and with an accent not unlike that which we call American.

"My name is Lemuel Gulliver, a shipwrecked mariner, at your service. Will you tell me what island this is on which I find myself, and to whom I am speaking."

"The island is Thule--Ultima Thule--the one spot of earth that has emerged from barbarism. Chance has done great things for you in bringing you here."

He slipped one hand out of its boot, removed his big spectacles, and blinked his weak eyes. I watched him narrowly. His face was hairless. It might have been the face of an old woman or of an old man. A look of cunning now crept over it.

"I think," he said, "that I grasp your difficulty. You may speak of me as a man; but for beings of the first class, to which I belong, sex is abolished. It was perhaps the worst of nature's evils that our triumphant civilisation in the process of centuries overcame."

"But in that case," I said, "your race, or that class of it to which you belong, must be rapidly dying out."

"It is undoubtedly dying out," said the strange creature with a complacent smile, "but less rapidly than a barbarian would suppose. Increased knowledge has brought with it increased longevity. I am myself one hundred and ninety-two years of age. The end must come, of course, but after all, why not?"

As I looked at him I did not from the aesthetic point of view see why not. The creature had replaced the spectacles now, and lay at full length on the sand, as if wearied by the standing position. He went on speaking:

"Death in the individual is, of course, to some extent a confession of failure. It means inability, mostly due to ignorance, to adapt oneself to one's environment. Death of a race may be quite a different matter--an exhaustion of utility. However that may be, it is clear that the last of us to survive will represent the highest possible development of human potentiality. I speculate sometimes on the question of who the ultimate survivor will be. It may possibly be Professor YM6403 of the Outer Office. Some think so. I believe he thinks so himself. On the other hand, I may be the last survivor. However, there are still some thousands of us in existence, and for the present these disquisitions may appear to you idle."

My clothes were damp and I was chilly, hungry, and tired. His jabber about professors and survivors had no interest for me. I ventured to point out to him that I was at present in urgent need of rest and refreshment.

He rose on all fours again, and did so with extreme awkwardness. "True," he said. "I will attend to it. We are hospitable people, though it is seldom that a stranger visits us. I will proceed at once to conduct you to my house."

"Your house? I fear that must be at some great distance, for there is no house in sight."

For a moment he looked puzzled, and then light dawned again in his short-sighted eyes.

"I see your mistake," he said. "You come from the old world, where the old type of house is still in existence. The history of the old world is the special study of my friend, the Professor. But of course there is general knowledge that every educated being may be supposed to possess, and I know the type of house you mean. I have seen pictures of it in the museum. Now in Thule, when many centuries ago aviation became the cheapest and most popular form of transit, it also became obviously impossible that we should have houses above ground. Aviation is a source of danger to such houses, and the houses themselves were dangerous to the aviator. Our buildings are all subterranean. We avoid danger of every kind. We dislike risk. You cannot see my house to which I am taking you, but as a matter of fact it is less than a quarter of a mile away."

He went so slowly that I had to abate my usual pace, lest I should outstrip my guide. As he moved, he looked a little like a very small tired elephant.

"Aviation," I said. "I suppose that with you that has been carried to a great point of perfection."

"On the contrary," he said, "it is superseded. It is a back number. We no longer use it. But we have seen no reason to change our style of domicile, which possesses many advantages."

"And what is it?" I asked, "that has superseded aviation?"

"It is the power to dissipate and subsequently reconstruct identically at some different point the atoms of any organism or group of organisms."

"I don't think I understand," I said.

"It is natural that you should not. However, here we are at my house."

It looked to me rather as if we had come to an ordinary well, the interior of which was occupied by a spiral descending incline.

"You will observe," he said, "that when I am weary of exertion and return to my house, I descend. In the old type of house it was customary to ascend."

I should calculate that we descended some thirty-five or forty feet below the surface. At this point we were confronted by a perfectly ordinary door with a brass knocker on it and an electric light above it. On the door were painted the letters and figures MZ04. He opened the door with a small latchkey, which he produced from one of his boots. The keyhole and the handle were placed at such a height that it was easy for him to reach them without assuming the erect position. We went through into a small hall, brightly lit and containing no furniture but a door-mat, on which my guide wiped his four boots carefully. He then requested me to come with him into the dining-room, as indeed I was by no means reluctant to do.

On entering this room, however, I was disappointed, for it bore no resemblance whatever to a dining-room, and there was no look of good cheer about it. Its walls were lined with shelves, and the shelves were filled with numbered bottles containing what looked like small pills. In the middle of the room, immediately under the light, was a low table, on which were a row of small aluminium cups and a leather-bound book. There was no other furniture of any description.

"You are looking for a chair perhaps," said my host presently. "We have none. To stand erect on the feet is a precarious position, and to sit is hardly less precarious. We avoid all risk. On all fours or in a recumbent position one is safe. However, if you would like to sit on the floor, pray do so, while I make up the prescription which you require."

I sat down on the floor, which was very hard and discouraging. I did not greatly like that use of the word "prescription," and my inner man cried rather for butcher's meat than for chemist's stuff. However, a man must take his adventures as he finds them.

My guide slipped his hands out of his boots and consulted the volume on the table. "From long use," he said meditatively, "I know most of the numbers by heart; but I cannot recall what is taken for a chill caused by prolonged submersion in sea-water. I have never had occasion to use it. Ah, here we are! Number one hundred and one."

He took down the bottle which bore that number, and dropped one pill from it into an aluminium cup. I noticed that the shelves were all placed low on the wall. But indeed the whole of the appointments and furniture of the house was adapted for beings who used the quadrupedal position. I noticed, moreover, both now and afterwards, what very little furniture there was in these houses. The hatred of superfluity was a marked characteristic of the people of Thule.

My host took down one bottle after another from the shelves, talking as he did so. Each bottle had an ingenious stopper, which allowed one pill, and only one, to fall out each time that the bottle was reversed.

"I have never eaten shark, cooked or uncooked," said my host, "but I should imagine that a diet confined to this meat would give an excess of nitrogen. We correct that with one of number eighteen. To this I add our ordinary repast--numbers one, two, and three--a corrective for exhaustion from number sixty-four, and a pill of a narcotic character from sixty-eight."

He handed me the little aluminium cup with the pills in it. "I think," he said, "that is all you require."

"I am extremely thirsty," I said.

"No civilised man eats and drinks at the same time." He whisked down another bottle and dropped one more pill into my cup. "You will find," he said, "that little addition will remove all sensation of thirst. You shall drink when the right time comes."

I took my pills obediently and was now conducted by him into a much smaller room on the same level. I afterwards saw other subterranean houses in the island. They were all alike in plan, and the rooms were all small and so low that when I stood erect I could easily touch the ceiling with my hand. The total absence of decoration, and the simplicity and scarcity of the furniture, were not specially characteristic of my host. AEsthetic pleasure was very slightly appreciated by any of the first-class beings in Thule.

A pneumatic mattress lay at one end of the room which we had now entered, and there were two dials on the wall, each provided with a moving hand. There was no other furniture of any kind.

"There is your bed," said my host. "Now sleep."

"I should hardly have called it a bed," I said dubiously.

"It is not the barbarian idea of a bed. We abandoned bed-clothes of every description long ago. They are not hygienic. All that is necessary is to raise the temperature of the room in which the sleeper lies. This you can easily do by altering the hand on the first of these dials, which controls the heat. It stands at present at fifteen. When I sleep I generally put it up to twenty. We will try it at twenty, and you can advance it farther if you find yourself chilly. The other dial controls the lighting and gives you five degrees of light down to absolute darkness."

"I wonder," I said, "if I might have my clothes dried. They are still damp, I fear."

He looked at my garments with marked distaste.

"If you will put them outside the door," he said, "I will see that they are thrown into the refuse-destructor, and will order proper clothes to be provided for you in their place. You will sleep for one hour, and shortly after that I shall return. By the way, how comes it that you speak our language?"

"I speak English," I said.

"English," he said meditatively. "English. I have heard that word somewhere. No, don't explain. I can easily obtain the information."

He now left me. I put the hand on the heat dial at twenty-five. Although I had no clothes of any description, I felt pleasantly warm, and in spite of the excitement caused by the novelty of my experience, I soon fell asleep. This may be ascribed either to the fatigues I had undergone or to the potency of the drugs administered to me.

 

CHAPTER II

When I awoke, it seemed to me that I must have slept for some six or eight hours, yet it had been but one hour only. I felt perfectly refreshed and well. I had shut off nearly all the light before falling asleep, and I now groped my way to the light dial and moved the hand round until the room was brightly illuminated. The silence of the place was remarkable; it was almost as if I had been in an uninhabited house. I opened the door of my room a little way, and was pleased to find a bundle of clothes awaiting me outside. I brought the bundle in and investigated it. At first sight it looked as if some mad and malicious tailor had made two pairs of trousers out of a material suitable for an overcoat. The reason of course was that the suit had been made with a view to the conformation and habits of the natives of this curious island. They wear two garments only, and therefore require them to be of considerable thickness, and their arms are of about the same length as their legs. (The difference in our own case is much less than most people imagine.) I soon put the two garments on, and found that they fitted me well enough if I rolled back the sleeves to leave my hands free. I was also provided with a pair of boots similar to those my host wore. They were too large for me, but could be kept on by a buckle and strap fastening at the ankle.

I now made some examination of the room itself. The walls and ceiling were covered with a hard shiny substance, which I at first thought to be paint, but afterwards decided to be of the nature of our water-glass. The usual right-angles between floor and walls and ceiling were in every case softened into a curve, which I recognised to be an advantage from the point of view of cleanliness. The floor itself was covered with the same material as the walls and ceiling, but in this case had a minute corrugation all over it, to prevent slipping. In the middle of the floor was a small grating, about one foot square. As I inspected this, a fan below it began to whirl rapidly, but without the slightest sound. As I was looking at it my host knocked and entered. I was pleased to see that he brought with him a sealed bottle and two aluminium cups that would have held about half a pint apiece.

"We now drink," he said briefly.

"An excellent idea," I began, but he immediately bade me to be quiet, saying that it was not customary to talk while drinking was in progress.

He divided the contents of the bottle (not quite fairly) between the two cups. He gave himself the advantage of the choice and finished his drink at a draught. I followed his example and found that I was drinking distilled water. At this I was somewhat disappointed, but the more disposed to forgive him for the injustice of the division.

"And now, my friend," he said, "we can talk."

"Then," I replied, "you will perhaps tell me what is the reason for the custom which prevents you from taking your drink in a sociable manner. In the country from which I come we like to sit and chat over our glass."

"So it was here also in the dark ages," said my host. "At that time our drink was for the most part of an alcoholic character, and it was found that the more one talked, the more one drank; and the more one drank, the more one talked. It was a vicious circle of foolishness and ill-health, and the practice was made illegal. Alcoholic drink is quite unknown now among the first-class beings of Thule. But the custom of not speaking when one drinks, although we now only drink water, still remains. It is one of the many instances in which the ritual has survived the religion."

I pointed now to the grating in the floor. "A ventilator, I suppose."

"Exactly. It is actuated once every hour for two minutes. It draws out carbon dioxide, which being heavier than air is in the lower part of the room, and at the same time draws in fresh air through the corresponding grating in the ceiling, which communicates with a shaft to the open. The great point about it is that it is absolutely noiseless. Our study of longevity has shown us that irritation is one of its deadliest enemies. The noise of an electric fan is irritating, especially in a bedroom. I dare say the crude appliances you have in the old world still whir or clatter."

"I notice that all your electric lights are fixed in the ceiling itself. Is there any reason for this?"

"Naturally. Anything which hangs may subsequently fall. We do not court dangers. It is curious that you should mention it, because I was speaking of this point only last week to my friend, the Professor. He showed me a picture of an old-world chandelier. He also told me it was the custom in England and other uncivilised parts of the world to daub oil-paints on a piece of canvas. This was surrounded by a heavy frame and was suspended on walls. It was called a framed picture. You will find nothing so reckless here. By the way, I have found out about England. I cross-spoke to the Outer Office, and they told me it was a piece of land at the back of Scotland."

I found later that "to cross-speak" meant in Thule to send a wireless message.

"The mention of the Professor," my host continued, "reminds me that to-day is his birthday and mine. On this day I generally make him a ceremonial visit, and I shall be pleased to take you with me. As a specimen you will interest him."

"Might I ask what you mean by the Outer Office?"

"The Central Office deals with utilitarian knowledge and is separated into Controls. I, for instance, am at the head of the Heat and Light Control. The Outer Office deals with academical knowledge, and our friend is the Professor of Old-World History. The Inner Office decides questions of justice. But there is no time just now to explain our simple constitution to you. We should be starting for the Professor's house."

"One more point," I said. "May I ask your name? I should have done so before."

"We do not have names. Beings of the first class have a distinguishing formula, and only use names for plants and the lower animals. The second-class beings, the workers, may possibly use names among themselves, but of that I have no knowledge. My own distinguishing formula is MZ04, and as no two people have the same formula, much confusion is prevented. By the way, your hair is untidy."

"Naturally," I said. "I was going to speak of it."

"And your hands are not clean. That is as it should be. You are now ready to pay a ceremonial call. You perhaps don't understand. All our houses are on the same pattern, and each is provided with a fitted room for the purposes of the bath and the toilet. But when we pay a ceremonial call, it is our invariable custom to do so in a soiled and dishevelled condition. On arriving we make ourselves clean and tidy in our host's toilet-room. This is done by way of compliment. It implies that he possesses conveniences which we do not."

"It seems to me singularly foolish, if I may say so."

"From one point of view all compliments are foolish, but from the point of view of longevity all compliments are wise. They have a slightly emollient effect. We recognise this so much that we even employ at times professional optimists."

"Won't you tell me about them?"

"It is a very simple matter. If a being of the first class gets worried and depressed, he knows that this is lowering his vitality and lessening the period of his life. This knowledge only tends to increase the worry. He therefore sends at once to the Central Office for a professional optimist. The optimist comes and talks. He slightly emphasises all that is most favourable in the being's circumstances. He dwells on the strong points in his character. He listens to his stories. He shows himself impressed by his abilities. We have but a few of these professional optimists, and they are extremely well paid--that is to say, their power of ordering from the Central Office is very considerable."

"Some of this seems to me rather childish," I said. "And some of it I do not understand."

"You, a barbarian, can hardly be expected to grasp at once the refinements of a higher civilisation. You will do so gradually. Now, please, I have only just time to see the Professor before I keep my appointment at the Heat and Light Control. Come along, please."

We passed up the spiral slope, my host going very slowly and breathing heavily. The Professor's house was scarcely a hundred yards away, and I think we took nearly five minutes to get to it. The outward appearance was precisely similar to that of the house we had just quitted. When we reached the outer door my guide knocked once. The door immediately opened, as if of itself, and we passed into an empty hall. From this a door led us into a large room devoted to the purposes of the bath and the toilet. I subsequently found that in all these subterranean houses this room was the largest. I remarked to my guide that no servant had admitted us, and there seemed to be no one to introduce us into the presence of the Professor.

"There are no servants," said my companion. "We have the second class, the workers, but we should not admit them to live in our houses. We have so far simplified life that one being can very well look after one house, his own. As a matter of fact two second-class beings are sent from the Hygienic Control of the Central Office every morning to clean each house, but it is a question whether this should continue. We are discussing it. It looks just a little like luxury, and luxury is dangerous to longevity. Why should we have a servant to announce us? If the Professor knows the visitor, it is not necessary. If he does not know him, the visitor can supply the information just as well as the servant. If the Professor had not wished to receive, the outer door would not have opened."

We did not find the Professor in the first room we entered, but in the dining-room, where he was taking pills out of one of those small aluminium cups. He went on taking his pills and we watched in solemn silence until he had finished. In appearance the Professor closely resembled my guide, but his fringe of hair was darker and more abundant, and something in his face seemed to betoken a love of study rather than high practical ability. I now witnessed another curious piece of etiquette.

"I hope you are ill," said my guide genially.

"Wrong absolutely," said the Professor, "but I trust that you yourself are suffering from some malignant disease."

"Nothing of the kind," said MZ04.

Subsequent inquiries showed me the reason for this. The principle was that the guest should take the earliest opportunity to make his host feel in a superior position. Therefore etiquette required the guest to arrive unkempt, as if he did not possess the conveniences which his host had at his disposal. It also required him to make an obviously false statement as to his host's health, in order that his host might have the power of correcting him. A well-bred host, such as the Professor, immediately replied by giving his guest a similar opportunity to correct and in consequence to feel in the superior position.

They now exchanged rather ponderous compliments on their respective birthdays. But in spite of their politeness I somehow got the impression that these two beings were in strong antagonism to one another, and that however much the emotions might be discouraged in Thule, feelings of jealously still existed.

"On this auspicious occasion," said the Professor, "it is generally my custom to make you some slight offering. I have placed a power to read a manuscript to your order at the Central Office."

"I thank you sincerely," said MZ04. "I had intended to do the same thing, but I think I have found something even more to your taste." He pointed at me with his booted hand. "Here," he said, "is rather a curious thing that I have found. You make a study of the old world and might be interested in it. I have no use for such curios myself and am happy to present it to you. In many respects--notably in its foolish use of the erect position--it resembles our second-class beings, but I believe it to be a genuine old-world relic."

"I am of the same opinion," said the Professor, "and I am obliged to you for your generosity. Can it talk?"

"Fluently," said MZ04, "but with a bad accent."

I now said very decisively that I was a free man, that I did not belong to either of them, and that I absolutely declined to be handed as a slave or a chattel from one to the other. I repeated this in varying terms more than once. They took not the slightest notice of it, but waited patiently till I had finished.

"I am busy to-day at the Heat and Light Control," said MZ04. "I fear that I must now leave you."

"Going to walk?" asked the Professor.

"No. I have taken my exercise for to-day. I shall disintegrate."

Even as I looked at him, his substance became a smoky shadow, shimmering and vibrating. It grew rapidly fainter and fainter until it had vanished altogether.

 

CHAPTER III

"And now," said the Professor, "before we go any further there is one point on which I wish to be assured. You came from the house of MZ04 just now?"

"I did."

"Did you observe in him as he came up to slope from his front-door any tendency to puff and blow?"

"He certainly did seem slightly short of breath."

"Poor fellow! Poor fellow! It breaks my heart to hear it. I don't give him another hundred years to live. Sad that so intelligent a being should be snuffed out like a candle."

The Professor did not look in the least as if it had broken his heart. So far as I was able to judge he seemed rather pleased than not.

"That being settled," he continued, "I may now devote myself to you. You made some protests just now, based, as most protests are, on ignorance. You are not going to be a slave. You may regard me as your host. I shall treat you as a guest and I shall look upon you as a curiosity. Tell me at once what I can do for you."

"I want to know where I am. I want to know the history of this place--the meaning of first-class and second-class beings--how sex came to be abolished--what is implied by a power of order from the Central Office. I have been here but a few hours and I find everything puzzling and incomprehensible."

"This," said the Professor, "is Thule. I cannot give you its exact geographical relation to the world, for it has no geographical relation. How do you imagine that you came here?"

I gave him some account of the shipwreck and of my fight with the sharks, showing him in proof my large clasp-knife, which, together with my perspective-glass and some other trifles, I had found means to secrete in the clothing provided for me by my former host.

"I have no doubt," said the Professor, "that you speak with sincerity. But you are wrong. That is not how you came here. Nor shall I put you in possession of the actual facts, or you would be able to use them to ensure your return. You are not a prisoner, but at present I wish to detain you. And now, if you will, I will give you roughly and in as few words as possible a sketch of our history and constitution. This being in the nature of a lecture, I shall lie down. It is the custom in this country for every lecture or public speech to be delivered in a recumbent position, the greatest physical ease being consistent with the greatest mental concentration. Come to the sleeping-room."

He led the way to a room provided with a pneumatic mattress. It was in all respects the counterpart of the room I had seen at my former host's house. He stretched himself on this mattress, and as there was plenty of room I saw no reason why I should not do the same. He noticed it and approved.

"You are wise," he said. "Your carcass will now cease to attract your attention and you will be able to attend to me."

He lay on his back with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, and his two long arms crossed over his protuberant stomach. Presently he began to speak in a solemn and magisterial voice, as if he were addressing a large class. I did from time to time interrupt him with question or remark, but have not thought it worth while to place such interruptions on record.

"To understand the conditions of Thule at the present day we must go back to the great social upheaval of centuries ago. At that time the equality of all men was claimed and the community of property. Successful agitation backed by armed force carried the matter. Community of property does to some extent remain to this day, although a more civilised view of the value of property is now held by us. But within a very few years of the social upheaval the fallacy of universal equality declared itself. It is a rare thing for two men to be facially alike, and no two men are ever equal in all respects. Such inequalities soon declared themselves. We had on the one side a minority who contributed more to the State in actual benefit than they received from it, and on the other side a majority who received more from the State than they contributed to it. The minority naturally became a discontented class, and healthy discontent produces activity. The majority, getting more than they gave, were quite satisfied with the state of affairs. They babbled of the blessings of an assured democracy. They took no trouble with themselves. They thought they were at the end of the social revolution when they were only at the beginning of it.

"The formation of a secret society, including most of the minority, was the natural result. You must not make the mistake of confusing this minority with the old aristocracy. The old aristocracy was based on lineage and wealth. The minority of which I speak was based on mind. They were the people who could acquire knowledge and could use knowledge. They included in their number some members of the old upper classes, but many also of the old lower classes. The aim of the secret society which they formed was not only the acquisition of knowledge, principally of a practical character, but also the seclusion of it. The members were sworn not to impart the secrets of the society to any of the great but inactive majority. In this secret society we have the origin of what are now called first-class beings. In the glutted and lazy democracy who formed the majority we have the origin of what we call second-class beings--beings who to-day are permitted to acquire no other knowledge whatever than that which is necessary for the work which they do under compulsion from us. At this moment by far the greater number of them are unable to read or to write or to perform the simplest operations of arithmetic.

"It is of course a commonplace of the text-books that no social evolution follows exactly on lines laid down and planned. The secret society, which was known as the Crypt, was formed originally for the purposes of self-defence. The only means by which a few superior beings could protect themselves against the aggression of the many inferior was by the possession of secret knowledge. To take a case in point: improvements of the first importance in the accumulation and transmission of electricity were made by a member of the Crypt whose formula was H401. H401 was called upon to specify and to explain what he had done. He produced a written statement which was from the first word to the last abject nonsense veiled in pompous scientific phraseology. It was accepted as perfectly satisfactory and deposited in the archives. Every electrician--every man of sufficient education to detect the fraud--was already a member of the Crypt. With this came the first inkling of the tremendous power which was now in the hands of comparatively few men. By the simplest dislocation of machinery they could deprive the great majority of light and heat, and could, if they would, choose a severe mid-winter for the operation. Many other secrets of knowledge came into the hands of the Crypt. I will not weary you with a catalogue of them, but I will mention one of which our friend MZ04 gave you just now a practical demonstration. I refer to the power to dissipate and subsequently to reconstruct identically at some different point the atoms of any organism or group of organisms. You saw just now how MZ04 dissipated himself as it were into smoke in order to reconstruct himself instantaneously at the Heat and Light Control, over which he presides. It is a secret of this kind which makes one being the master of many armies. This was realised by the Crypt and a course of offensive action was at last decided upon.

"At this juncture the voice of the Crypt was practically the voice of that extraordinary and commanding personality Q666--a formula that will be for ever remembered in our history. He was not a being of high scientific attainments. His life was irregular. He had neither scruples nor mercy; but he saw clearly the thing to be attained and the means towards it. At his instigation the General National Assembly was declared to be dissolved, and the whole of the second-class beings were enjoined under penalty of death to yield the strictest obedience to the orders of the Crypt as issued.

"The proclamation was received with ridicule by the second class. Democracy had always triumphed and would triumph again. It relied much upon the fact that the army was entirely democratic. That is to say, no officer or man was a member of the Crypt. The army was not deficient in courage. Its officers included even some few men who took their profession seriously. It was confidently anticipated that after a few days of civil war the Crypt would be compelled to submit.

"I have said that Q666 was a being without scruple. His declaration was made in mid-winter and the whole land was ice-bound. And on the night that followed the declaration heat and light were cut off from the dwellings and camps of his opponents. Some thousands died that night and many more in the course of the next few days. The water which they drank was mysteriously tainted and produced death. Their army found no objective for attack, so rapidly, by virtue of that power which I have described, did the members of the Crypt come and go. On the day when the democracy submitted and received the new constitution by which they ranked as second-class beings, they had actually become inferior in numbers to the beings of the first class. The rule which Q666 established remains to this day. Sentimentalists had in the old days clamoured for the abolition of capital punishment. Q666 abolished every other kind of punishment except this. The punishment for idleness after three warnings was death. The punishment for any intentional disobedience was death without any warning at all.

"I have given you quite roughly and simply with little or no detail the story of the struggle between the Crypt and the democracy, ending in the establishment of first-class and second-class beings.

"I have shown how from an attempt to establish universal equality and to abolish all class distinction there came into being two classes between which there was a distinct cleavage--a class of masters and a class of servants. The end of the struggle was only what could have been expected. While all the harnessed forces of wind and tide provided radiance and warmth for the members of the Crypt, their opponents froze in the darkness. The same water that poisoned the democracy that drank it refreshed the masters without injuring them. The old-fashioned disciplined stupid army was powerless against opponents whose mobilisation, swift as lightning, rendered them practically invisible. There is still much to relate to you, but I grow weary of talking. I propose to take you to see my plants."

"Got a nice garden?"

"We have no gardens. I keep my plants as pets here in my house. Without awakening any emotion which might be prejudicial to longevity, they provide a mild interest and a salutary change from more serious occupation. Follow me and I will show you them."

He rose from the mattress and I noticed that he did so with more ease and agility than had characterised the movements of my poor friend MZ04. I followed him to a room so small that it might almost have been called a cupboard. It was intensely lit by a tinted electric light. In it were two tall plants in tubs.

The leaves of the plants were large and of a tropical character. Each had a stem about three feet in height, surmounted by a ball which looked as if it were made of fine silk. The colour of the ball or flower in one case was a peacock-blue and in the other dead black. I noticed a slight movement of the leaves as we entered the room and assigned it to the opening of the door.

"The plant with the blue head is Edward," said my host. "He is rather an affectionate little thing. Observe."

He called Edward twice in a caressing voice, and immediately the stem of the plant bent downwards and the silky blue ball rubbed itself caressingly against my host's cheek. Almost immediately the other plant began to agitate its leaves violently and to waggle its black ball backwards and forwards.

"You observe?" said my guide. "Frederick is jealous."

He gave each of them a little water and we then went back to the sleeping-room again.

"I never saw anything like that in my life before," I said. "Plants with us cannot move of their own volition. They----"

"Surely you mistake," said the Professor. "I am no botanist, but I have made a special study of what went on in the old world, and I think I am correct in saying that there were creeping plants there which moved to find their supports, and plants whose leaves shrivelled up at a touch, and others that actually devoured the insects which formed their sustenance. Almost anything can be done with plants and knowledge. The old world produced many new varieties--some of them of real utility, as for instance the thornless cactus. We have merely gone a little further. We live in solitude and a companion of some kind is a necessity. I think you will find that every first-class being here keeps one or two pet plants."

"You don't keep dogs or cats?"

"We keep nothing which can be both offensive and provocative of strong affection. Cats and dogs, common though they were in the old world, stand condemned under both categories."

 

CHAPTER IV

"This," said the Professor, "is the hour at which on fine and warm days we go out and bask in the sun. Sunlight is the enemy of disease and the friend of longevity. You would perhaps like to come with me. We shall find many more engaged in the same occupation."

We passed out of the house and up the spiral incline. The scene before me reminded me somewhat of certain stretches of grass in our public parks on a hot day. Here and there on the coarse grass or sand were stretched the grey-clad bodies of beings of the first class. I did not see any engaged in conversation or in reading or even in sleep. They simply lay still in the sun. Some of them had brought rugs with them. One who appeared to be very infirm was carried in a kind of litter by four finely built men who walked erect.

"That," said the Professor, "is the grandson of the great Q666."

"And who are the fine-looking men who are carrying him?"

"Merely second-class beings detailed for the work. Take no notice of them. They will not, of course, venture to remain in our presence."

The four men deposited their master gently on a bed of tufted grass and marched away again without a word. So far as I could compute, there were now some two hundred first-class beings stretched out motionless under the pleasant and vivifying warmth of the sun.

"May we not," I asked as we reposed ourselves, "take this opportunity for some continuation of your lecture? There is still much about which I am curious."

"On what point would you wish me to speak first?"

"I am told that among beings of the first class at any rate sex is abolished."

"Can sex be of interest to any thinking being? It is of no interest at all to me."

"It happens," I said boldly, "to be of the very first interest to myself."

"Very well," said the Professor. "We must withdraw to some distance, so that our voices do not disturb the meditations of others."

I followed him to the spot that he selected. We lay on our backs on the sand and he continued his discourse.

"The practical abolition of sex has with us been a very gradual process extending over centuries. It began with that great social upheaval of which I have already told you. To declare the complete equality of men was to declare the complete equality of the sexes. It ended about one hundred and fifty years ago when the words "men" and "women" ceased to be used by first-class beings, and no distinction of sex was admitted. That I think is all you want to know."

"Pardon me," I said. "You give me no explanation whatever."

"The thing explains itself. Take first the case of a male. You will find in him so many factors mental and physical which belong to the race and so many which belong to the individual. In the case of a male the factors which belong to the individual are very much in excess of those which belong to the race. In the female we find the reverse of this. The factors which belong to the race are in her largely in excess of those which belong to the individual. She is the martyr and trustee of humanity. That was the state of affairs before the great social upheaval of which I have spoken. When women began to mix in every business, profession, and sport, a new type of woman very soon declared itself--unusually tall, flat-chested, small in the hips, destitute of femininity. Briefly, the male type and the female type began to assimilate. Now sex assimilation is the death of sex attraction. All that women spent on their individual development they stole from the race. Marriages became rare and where they existed they were frequently sterile. Gradually, all that made man man and all that made woman woman became rudimentary and atrophied until, as I have told you, one hundred and fifty years ago the distinction between man and woman was abolished. Since that time, and indeed for some ten years previous to it, there has been no instance of birth or marriage or love-making among beings of the first class. The last word of civilisation has been reached. It is a splendid consummation."

"Splendid?" I said doubtfully.

"How can you doubt it? Now that the burden of racial responsibility has been cut off from our backs, our longevity is trebled and more than trebled. This may be assigned in part to our increased knowledge and to the fact that we do no laborious or dangerous work. Laborious and dangerous work is confined to the second class. With them, of course, sex still exists. They are a lower order. They breed up children. When the number of workers is deficient we keep those children. When the number tends to be excessive they are destroyed. Have you never thought into what a quandary racial responsibility led men and women in the dark ages? No married man lived as an unmarried man, no married woman as an unmarried woman. Life became a string of compromises and concessions. There were complicated households with nurseries in them. It must be clear to you that the man who works for six people must work just six times as hard as the man who works for himself alone. Work is dangerous. And if work is dangerous, worry is deadly. Worry is enormously increased where there is any emotional attachment. Look how we have simplified things. To one being one house. The emotions never paid for their keep, and it is civilised to get rid of them. Tears are as little known among the first-class beings of Thule as is the gross and unhygienic kiss. The tortures of modesty do not affect us, for where there is no sex distinction there is no modesty. We are emancipated. We are free. Love implies death. The loveless live long. I may tell you that it is whispered already that we are on the edge of discoveries which may make it possible for us to live for ever."

"Well," I said, "I am not constituted as you are. You would hardly expect me to like what you like."

"I do not expect any man from the old world to be civilised. It would not be reasonable. But what objection can you possibly offer to the state of things among the first-class beings here?"

"Well, to take the first point that occurs to me, it seems to me that you must all be most horribly bored."

"Never," said my host emphatically. "Boredom is the result of living too fast. Those who work too hard or those who enjoy too much must in the intervals of their work or enjoyment be bored. Here we have found by experience the exact pace at which one should live. Every one of the first-class beings has an occupation of some kind for which he was originally fitted by training and is now specially fitted by long experience. Take the Central Office alone. It is divided into many Controls and in each Control there are many sections. The being who made me a present of you, our friend MZ04, is at the head of the Heat and Light Control. In that alone there are forty-two sections and each section finds work for two first-class beings. Love never stimulates us to an excess of work. Love never takes our minds from the thing on which we are engaged. We do what we can do well and we do it under the best possible conditions, and we have no entertainments of any kind. How then can we be bored? I have said enough. Let me meditate."

"There is just one thing more I should like to ask."

"What is your name or formula?"

"My name is Lemuel Gulliver."

"Well, Gulliver, we are kindly and hospitable people. For some weeks I shall be keeping you here and obtaining from you first-hand information on various details of life in the old world. You will be catechised for one hour or so a day. You may take your revenge in advance. I will answer one more question."

"You told me that community of property still practically existed among you."

"It does. Money is not used. In proportion to the work he does a first-class being has the power of ordering what he requires from the Central Office. It is an extremely rare thing for any first-class being to order all to which he is entitled. The wisest are those who reduce property to the barest necessities. At a man's death all that he has reverts to the State. Here we have no appalling families. Here no man has to make provision for prodigal sons and worthless daughters. We are free from the insanity of love and we find it more easy to believe in friendship when friendship must always remain unremunerated."

"And still I do not envy you," I said. "You are not free from all emotions yet. I have already found two in existence among you, and they are two which I do not greatly love."

"What are they?" the Professor asked.

"Fear and jealousy."

"Lie still. You disturb my meditations."

For half an hour he remained silent with his eyes closed, but not, I think, asleep. Then rising suddenly on all fours he said that we would return to his dwelling, take our pills and compose ourselves for the night.

"I would make a request to you," I said. "These pills which you take are wonderful and I have already experienced their good effects. But I do not think I could live upon them. Evolution has brought your digestive apparatus to a pitch of perfection that I cannot hope to possess. What can you do for me?"

"Our workers, the beings of the second class, are accustomed to kill an ox, cut off a piece of it, subject it to the action of heat, and then devour it. They make also a drink which has great attractions for them. It has even led them to disobey, and to disobey is of course to die. I am sorry to mention such filthy diet, but I can think of nothing else. After all it might suit an old-world barbarian."

"I think it might suit me admirably."

"Then I will have second-class rations sent you every day from the Central Office. I will cross-speak the Central Office now in order that they may send you a piece of dead animal before you sleep. The one condition I make is that I shall not see you engaged in tearing it to pieces with your teeth. You will take it in your own room."

"And which will that be?"

"Oh," he said carelessly, "I shall keep you in the cupboard with my two other pets, the plants. You shall have a mattress to lie on."

A few minutes later one of the working class brought a covered tray, deposited it just inside the Professor's door, and departed.

"Your food," said the Professor. "Take it to the cupboard."

I did so with pleasure. I found on the tray a plate of excellent cold roast beef and a knife and fork of rough workmanship and some flat hard biscuits. There was also a bottle containing about a quart of strong old ale. With this I was very well satisfied, and stretching myself on my mattress, for which there was barely room in the cupboard, I composed myself to slumber.

 

CHAPTER V

I passed a wretched night. I cannot assign this to the small size of my sleeping-room, for I was able to stretch myself at full length and the admirable system of ventilation kept the air always fresh. Such sleep as I had was haunted by dreams in which these four-legged human beings figured largely. Early in the morning I rose and switched on the light, hoping that by pacing my cell or the passage without for a few minutes I might again induce sleep. I saw a strange sight. The silky heads of the two plants swayed gently to and fro continuously. Their leaves rose and fell. Somehow they seemed to suggest to me a caged lion.

"You poor devils," I said aloud.

When I had put out the light and stretched myself on the mattress again I felt the silky head of one of these plants rubbing against my cheek. It startled me at first. I touched it with my hand. It was about the size of a man's fist. I felt its thousand fibres vibrating under my touch.

In the morning another covered tray was brought me, precisely the same as on the previous evening. A bad night gives one little appetite for strong ale in the morning and I begged a drink of distilled water from the Professor. I took that opportunity to explain to him the kind of food that I should require in the future, and to beg for some facilities by which I might cook myself a hot dish. This last he refused, but agreed that my evening ration should be brought to me hot in the future.

I remained with the Professor for fifteen days. Every day for about an hour he catechised me closely on the manner of life in my own country--the old world, as he called it. His knowledge and his ignorance alike amused me. For example, he made a drawing of a hansom-cab which was really fairly accurate; but he was under the impression that hansom-cabs were used in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar. All his ideas about dates were wrong and confused, and perpetually I had to correct him. He made notes of all that I told him with an ink pencil.

"You are writing a book on this subject?" I asked him one day.

"I am. That is my duty."

"And when will it be printed and published?"

"Upon the defeat of the democracy and the establishment of first-class and second-class beings, the extremely wise course was taken of breaking up all printing-machines and destroying all books, except those copies, mostly manuscript, which were especially selected for the library of the Central Office. We neither print nor publish."

"Why do you call this a wise course? It seems to me the wildest folly. It is to cheap printing and cheap books that the spread of education in my own country has been largely due."

"Undoubtedly. The question of course is whether the spread of education--or rather what you mean by education--is in any way desirable. It seemed to us that one might as well admit children and fools under no supervision to a menagerie of wild beasts and provide them with the keys of the cages. We respect letters. We consider it a dishonour to letters that books should be cheap or easily obtainable. Here it costs a first-class being more to read one manuscript from the library of the Central Office than it would cost you in your own country for a year's subscription to King Mudie."

I informed him that Mudie was not a king and that I did not know how he had got the idea. He accepted the correction as he always accepted every correction, with considerable irritation.

"It seems to me," he continued, "that you use the word education in a very narrow sense. I myself should say that the whole of our second-class beings were educated. Each is trained to the work that he has to do. We have for instance a group of them who are familiar with the ordinary process of plant culture. They can dig, they can prune, they can plant. They have the education for which they are fitted. They are not versed in those extraordinary modifications which can be produced in plants by chemical changes caused artificially in the nature of the sap. That branch is naturally reserved for beings of the first class. They are taught how to weave and how to make the garments which we all wear. They are taught how to clean our houses in the quickest, most silent and most effective manner. Briefly, they do any work which their intelligence and judgment entitle them to do. Beyond that we do not go. We do not give them knowledge which would be dangerous to them and to us. When you return home, my friend, if ever you do return home, preach to your poor benighted people the inequality of man and the advisability of restricting all really important knowledge to the higher grade."

One day while we were chatting about indifferent subjects he mentioned quite casually that he had been cross-speaking the Central Office and that he found that MZ04 had died that morning.

"I am sorry to hear it," I said. "For after all he received me kindly--fed me and clothed me. When is the funeral?"

"Funeral?" said the Professor. "We have no funerals. The body of MZ04 went into the refuse-destructor hours ago. Death is a confession of failure, a sure proof of a blunder somewhere, and therefore ordinary politeness tells us that we should take as little notice of it as possible."

"Who will take his place?" I asked.

"That has already been decided by the Inner Office."

"You had no ambitions in that direction?"

"None whatever. There is no reason why in addition to my present appointment I should not now be holding a post--and a highly placed post--in the Inner Office. It is merely a want of appreciation and, I am afraid I must add, a certain meanness in the minds of some first-class beings which keeps me a humble professor. However, merit will tell; I can trust to that."

The boasted civilisation of Thule had at any rate not extirpated human vanity. The vanity of the Professor was colossal. No compliment was too gross for him to accept with avidity. His nature was indeed very curious and difficult for a simple man like myself to comprehend. In spite of the casual way in which he spoke of death, I was convinced that he lived in hourly dread of it. In spite of the fact that he spoke of every known form of religion as an idle superstition, and professed the most absolute materialism, I think he was unable to disbelieve entirely in the future life. His nerves were not good. Sometimes in the middle of the night he would tap at the door of the cupboard where I slept and ask me to come out and speak to him. There was always some excuse, and I think the excuse was never the true one. The fact of the case is that the extreme solitude in which most of these first-class beings lived had its inevitable effect upon them. They had, as the Professor observed, no entertainments. They had really no social gatherings. Occasionally one friend would pay a brief and formal visit to another friend, but there was nothing beyond that, When they went abroad for exercise or to bask in the sun, they as a rule passed one another unnoticed.

I was myself the reason why for a time the number of visitors to the Professor's house increased considerably. People came to see me, and he produced me and lectured upon me in terms which were sufficiently humiliating.

"Observe," he would say, "the ludicrous smallness of the head and the short and attenuated forelegs. In this respect one might almost believe him to be a second-class being. He is probably, however, a still lower type. The skin is whiter from deficient pigmentation, and the size of the body is smaller than in a second-class male. In the land from which he comes I find that they learn nothing by experience. The child born into the world there naturally adopts the safe quadrupedal position and has the use of its toes. The creature that we have here can do absolutely nothing with his toes and is uncomfortable in the quadrupedal position. In fact, the deformity of his body prevents him from adopting it easily."

At this point in his lecture he would change to a different language and continue. This second language was used by first-class beings among themselves when they wished to say anything without being understood by those whom they considered their inferiors. In the presence of a second-class being it was that language which the first class always adopted. Among themselves and in my presence they spoke English, except on the occasions when they did not wish me to understand them.

I began to rebel against the kind of life which I was leading. I disliked to be made a curiosity and a show of. The monotony affected me. The horrible familiarities of those two plants in my sleeping-room got on my nerves. I began to hint to the Professor that I must have change and more freedom or that the source of his information would possibly be dried up.

"If you became useless to me," he said carelessly, "you would be killed, of course. You would have failed and your body would go into the refuse-destructor."

"Very likely," I said. "But you would not get the information which you want. And you do want it, you know."

That was my trump card. He really did want to acquire all possible information about what he called the old world. In return for this I was always able to obtain concessions, and I did not fail in this case. I told him that I wished to explore the island, to go right over to the other side of it and see the places where the second class lived and the work they did. At first he tried to dissuade me. He pointed out that the distance to the other side of the island was not less than eight miles, and refused to believe that this would not be beyond my strength. He painted in lurid colours the dangers of the mountain which I should have to cross and of the forests which I should find on the other side. I, however, remained obstinate in my purposes and at last obtained his permission to go, on condition that I returned in ten days and that I never spoke with any second-class being whom I might encounter, lest I should inadvertently betray important knowledge to them. This promise I gave readily enough, but, I must confess, with no intention of keeping it. He gave me some further instructions and a pass written with the ink pencil, which he said would entitle me to protection and help from any first-class being whom I might encounter.

Thus then on a fine sunny morning I started out with no more equipment than I could easily carry on my back. The prospect of adventure lured me. For the first time for days I felt in good temper and spirits.

 

CHAPTER VI

The Professor had been well within the mark in stating that the breadth of the island was not less than eight miles. By sundown I must have covered thirty miles at least and encamped for the night by the side of a swift and narrow stream. I had still the low hill to cross which the Professor had spoken of as a mountain. In a flat country such as Thule, all hills are mountains.

The Professor's mistakes in regard to time and distance interested me a good deal. I could understand that they rendered him professionally unsuitable for the practical work of the Central Office and that they probably helped to debar him from the post which he desired in the Inner Office. It may be, perhaps, that one cannot have an over-development in one direction without a compensating defect in another. The Professor showed the same anxiety to conceal his want of time-sense that an engine-driver might show to conceal his colour-blindness. After all, instances of this want of time-appreciation are common enough among my own people in dealing with the past. One knows the vagueness with which the ordinary man assigns a fact to the sixteenth or seventeenth century--a fact which in reality belongs to the eighteenth. The further back we go the more vague we become. It is difficult for us to realise that the difference between the tenth and eleventh centuries is a difference of a hundred of those very years which we are now living. So far as the present was concerned, the Professor's time-appreciation was clear and accurate enough. He never forgot the hour at which he should take his pills or his siesta in the sun. Watches were unknown in Thule, but there was a clock in every room, and all clocks were wound and synchronised electrically from the Central Office.

I had never been able to persuade the Professor to tell me where the Central, Outer, and Inner Offices were domiciled. I guessed at first it would be where I saw that shaft of smoke ascending when I landed at the island, but afterwards I saw several other similar smoke columns and assigned them to subterranean factories of some kind. But in the course of my day's ramble I came upon many other features that interested me. I reached a long stretch of fields in which a veritable army of the second class was at work. Each field was numbered and seemed to have its separate gang. Each gang was in the charge of one first-class being. As a rule he lay in the sun with one hand removed from the boot and covered with a rubber glove. In this hand he held a thick rod some three feet in length which seemed to me to be made of aluminium. His quick and watchful eyes surveyed the whole of the field, and every now and then he called out an order to some individual labourer. The order was in every case instantly obeyed. In every one of these fields I was challenged by the overseer with a loud "Who are you?" I replied as the Professor had directed me and showed my pass. I was then allowed to go on unmolested. I may even say that I was treated with kindness. One of these beings had water fetched for me that I might drink. Another, astounded by the distance which I had covered on foot, offered to provide four labourers with a litter to carry me, and seemed surprised to find that I really preferred walking. In many of these fields there was grain ready for harvest--of the same kinds, I think, as we have in our country, but with the ears much larger and heavier and of a very dwarf-like habit. I found barley and oats full grown standing scarcely six inches above the ground.

Beyond these cultivated fields was a gently undulating plain, not unlike common land I have seen in England. The bracken was near waist-high, and often I had to force my way through a tangle of bramble and gorse. This part of the country seemed to be entirely deserted, and with no one to direct me I steered by the sun. After some miles of this I came upon a small clump of elm trees and stretched myself in the shade for food and rest.

As I lay asleep I felt a gentle touch upon my shoulder, and opening my eyes I saw one of the first-class beings. I judged him to be one of the overseers, for from one of his big loose boots an aluminium rod projected.

"Who are you?" he said.

I showed him my credentials. He seemed satisfied.

"Go on your way at once," he said, "and bear well to the right, for here you are in danger."

I could not tell what the danger might be, but thought it best to take his advice. As he trotted away from me I fastened up my pack again and slung it on my back, and almost instantly I saw what the danger was. Out from a dip of the land which had concealed them came a herd of about twenty wild cattle. Their size was enormous. The leader, a white bull, scented or sighted me and charged at once towards me. There was but one thing to do. I gripped a low bough and easily swung myself up into the tree, even in the moment of my activity speculating how long I should be kept there and what would happen to the overseer who had spoken to me and was now scarcely a hundred yards distant. The bull paced round and round the tree, pawing the earth and striking the trunk with his great horns. From my perch I could see that the overseer now stood still. He had slipped one hand out of the boot and now grasped that aluminium rod. At that moment the bull sighted him and charged him. The rest of the herd waited huddled and motionless.

When the bull was within about twenty yards of him the overseer raised his hand and pointed that rod towards the beast. There was a flash as of lightning, a loud crackling sound, and the bull rolled over stone dead. The rest of the herd turned tail and galloped off in panic. Without a word to me the overseer replaced the rod in his boot and went on his way.

I could understand now how one of these beings could easily control a gang of thirty or more of the second-class labourers, and could ensure punctual and complete obedience. Yet, grateful though I was to this overseer, I regarded the beings of his type more with wonder than with admiration. They were a selfish and sterile race. Their mode of walking suggested to me too vividly things that I had seen in the great ape-house in Regent's Park. Physically they were not, according to our notions, to be compared with the second class whom they controlled. Those that I saw of the second class were all men of fine stature. Their skins were darker than the European and of a reddish brown. Their faces were handsome, gloomy, and sombre. They seemed more akin to me than did this four-legged thing with the monstrous head and the death-dealing rod in his boot. But as yet I had spoken to no being of the second class. As I passed through the cultivated fields I was all the time under the eyes of the overseers, and deemed it inadvisable to break through the Professor's injunctions.

I saw nothing more of the wild cattle nor of any living being until I reached the stream beside which I camped for the night. I had been told that on the farther side of the hill I should find a forest and beyond the forest the dwellings of the second class and the sea.

As I lay stretched on my rug I heard beneath me a curious rumbling sound and guessed correctly what it might be. It was commonplace enough--an underground train taking the workers back to their homes. Commonplace, at least, in London, but strange in the environment in which I found it. I slept well, as I ever do in the open on a warm night, and in the morning after a refreshing swim in the stream set out to climb the hill.

 

CHAPTER VII

The air was clear and from the crest of the hill I obtained a fine view. Beneath me lay a forest that covered, I should imagine, some four or five miles. Beyond was the blue sea, and close to the shore what looked like a small town or village of much the same character as we are familiar with in England. These were the first buildings above ground that I had seen in Thule, and constituted the dwellings of beings of the second class.

The attitude of the first class towards the second was rather puzzling. The restriction of the numbers of the workers was quite ruthless. Children that were not wanted were destroyed as we destroy superfluous kittens, fewer girls than boys being allowed to live. The punishment of death was given for any act of disobedience, and even, after due warning, for carelessness and incompetence. But the workers whom I had seen so far--all men--were evidently well treated. They showed no signs of over-work, or under-feeding, or disease. They were tall, stout fellows, all of them, and evidently in fine condition. Not one of them adopted or attempted to adopt the quadrupedal position. They walked erect, and were obviously the physical superiors of their masters. Doubtless utilitarian views had prevailed with the first-class beings, and they gave such treatment to the second class as would ensure the maximum of effective work from them.

The clothing of the workers was of the same thick woollen material as that of their masters, but of a different colour--a reddish brown. The men threw off their upper garment when working in the fields. It will be remembered that on my arrival I was provided by the late MZ04 with grey garments similar to those worn by the first class. I was thus in the nature of an anomaly to everyone who met me. I walked erect and therefore did not belong to the first-class beings. I wore the grey garments, the sleeves of which had now been abbreviated to suit me, and therefore did not belong to the second class. To tell the truth my stature was inferior to theirs, and would by itself have distinguished me.

Standing on the crest of the hill I made my plans. It was in my mind to get away from this island as soon as might be. In a forest of that extent I might easily lie hidden for weeks, and I doubted if, with all his knowledge and cunning, the Professor would be able to find me. Meanwhile I would establish friendly relations with some of the second class. Living as they did upon the sea-shore, I expected that they would have contrived boats for their own use, and thus I might make my escape. I had the whole day before me, and began now to explore the forest, intending to go on to the village on the shore when the workers had returned in the evening.

I followed the course of the stream that trickled down the hill-side. There was no wind, and except for the burble of the stream and the call of the birds all was still in the forest. Here and there the stream broadened out into wide shady pools, where it seemed to me there might be the chance of tickling a trout. Presently I heard below me a loud splashing. The trees and undergrowth were so thick that I could see but a very little way before me. I still followed the stream in the direction of the sound, but I went with extreme caution, taking care that my footsteps should not be heard. I did not know what danger might not be awaiting me below.

Presently I reached the pool from which the sound had come. Peering through the bushes I saw, seated in a dejected attitude by the edge of the pool, a very beautiful woman. In spite of the fact that she had been swimming, and her long dark hair hung dankly about her brown shoulders--wet hair is ever unbecoming to a woman--her beauty was amazing. The brown shoulders peeped from the heavy folds of the garment which she had thrown round her after her swim. It was of the colour prescribed for beings of the second class. The women of that class wear but one garment--a long piece of stuff like a plaid, that they drape about them. As I came into view she started up and gave a scream of terror.

"Do not be afraid," I called. "I mean you no harm. I will not hurt you."

As she looked at me further she seemed reassured. "I thought," she said, "at first that one of the gods had come to take me."

"What gods?" I asked.

"The gods that walk on four legs and against whom no man can do anything. Your dress is of the same colour that they wear."

"I am no god, but an ordinary man enough--a shipwrecked mariner cast up on this island a few weeks ago, and now planning to escape from it again."

"There is no escape," she said mournfully. "The gods know everything."

"Let me come down and speak with you."

"Come," she said. "I am not afraid any more."

"What do you do here?" I asked, as I sat beside her.

"I have fled from death. It was ordained by the gods that I should die at sundown seven days ago. I escaped and hid myself here. But there is no escape really. Sooner or later they will find me. They never fail. In their coming and going they are unseen. Suddenly before you stands one of the gods, and he points his rod at you and you are dead. It is not possible to hide from those whom one cannot see in their approach."

"Has no one ever escaped?"

"Years ago a girl like myself fled to the forest, and for three months in the summer she lived there. It was I myself who found her lying dead. Her garment over her breast was scorched by the lightning of the gods, and her heart was burned within her. It was all one; for in the winter she would have perished of cold and starvation. I love life. I want every day and hour that I can get. But I have no hopes."

"Tell me, what is your name?"

"To the gods I have no name. When I am at work a number is put upon me; it may be a different number every day. Among my own people I am called Dream."

"And why was it that seven days ago you incurred the anger of your masters and were to die?"

"Seven days ago I had the care of a loom. By sundown so much work was to be finished. It is easy work. Our gods never give the women hard work. All the same, that which is appointed must be done. It was just at the beginning of the first spell of hot weather. The forest called me. It was stronger than I was. When I went to my midday meal I slipped into the forest and swam in the pool, and could not go back to the loom again. After that I dared not go back, for those who have disobeyed die instantly. Such is the will of the gods, and we cannot alter it."

"Listen to me," I said. "Those whom you call gods are not gods. They are descended from those who, many years ago, were men and women just as you are. They are not all-powerful. I myself mean to escape from them. Generations of slavery have crushed your spirit, but in the country from which I come there are no slaves. I shall escape and I shall take you with me."

"You are good. I will do as you say. But how can one escape?"

"In the town on the shore I hope to be able to find a boat."

She looked at me with her dark and lustrous eyes wide open in sheer wonderment.

"What is a boat?" she asked.

Her ignorance I found was not assumed. The making of a boat had been prohibited so long by the beings of the first class that now even the recollection of it had passed from the workers. They regarded the sea with terror. It was the grey liquid wall of their prison-house. To touch it was to die. They bathed in the forest pools, and never in the sea. The fish that they ate were fresh-water fish only. Their masters had told them numberless strange lies about the sea.

"Dream," I said, "there is one thing which I cannot understand. You live in daily terror of these people whom you miscall gods. You are fairly well treated, but you are not free. You live as slaves. Why do you tell me, then, that you want every hour and every minute of life?"

She dipped a bare foot in the water below her, passing it slowly to and fro.

"There is always love," she said pensively.

 

CHAPTER VIII

"What do you know of love?" I asked.

She shrugged her pretty shoulders. "Almost nothing, except of the lesser loves--the love of children, the squirrels in the forest."

"Of parents," I suggested.

"No," said Dream decisively. "You cannot love those whom you do not know."

"But how does it happen that you do not know your parents?"

"How should I? Sometimes for two years, sometimes for three--as the gods decide--the child remains with its parents. After that it is taken away from its parents and brought up by the gods. That is the law."

"But these women who have their children taken away from them--how do they bear it?"

"Sometimes they are so sad that they go away into the forest and eat the nightshade and die. More often they weep for a long time and then they forget. When a thing is the law and it cannot be altered, there are very few who become angry or grieved about it. What would be the use? The gods are very careful about the children, you know."

"In what way careful?"

"If a child is weak, sickly, or misshapen, it is killed instantly. If it is unable to learn how to do any work it is killed. The strong which remain are well treated. For some years they do little work, they are well fed, they are healthy and happy."

I thought of the gangs of magnificently built men that I had seen at work in the fields. I looked at the strong and beautiful girl beside me. The drastic methods of the lords of Thule had at least brought about one thing--the highest possible physical condition of the race.

"Tell me," I said, "do your gods interfere also in the matter of marriage?"

She gazed at me with her sincere and wondering eyes. "What is marriage?" she said, in much the same tone as she had inquired what a boat was.

I told her something of the marriage ceremonies existing in my own country, and she was very much amused.

"But why?" she asked; "that is a very great to-do about very little. If a man loves a woman and the woman also loves the man, what more is there to say? Why write down things in books and call many people to a feast?"

"Dream," I said, "you are an immoral heathen."

"Those also are words that I do not know. You will tell me about them."

I did not tell her about them. I had already been rather struck by the curious simplicity of her own speech. Her phrases were at times biblical, though she knew nothing of any religion, and could not have read a bible if she had possessed one.

"And when, as you say, a man and woman love one another, is it customary with you for them to live together for the rest of their lives?"

Dream yawned. I was wearying her.

"It is so strange," she said, "to have to tell you the things that everybody knows. Also what you ask is so funny. Of course people who love live together. Is not that right?"

I hardly knew what to tell her. She had the innocence of the first garden. After all it may be that the notions of right and wrong which are very properly accepted in my own country are not to be imposed upon every people in every form of civilisation. I did not wish to judge her. I therefore changed the subject.

"This evening, Dream, I want you to take me to that town where you all live. I am going to save you and take you away from this island. To do that I must make a boat or a great raft. I must have men to help me."

"I will take you there if you wish, but if I do I shall die immediately. Every day and every night the overseeing gods go up and down there. It is well known that I left my work at the loom, and that I am to die. The gods have said I am to die, and what they say always happens. Any one of them who saw me in the town would point at me with his death-rod and I should fall. Still, no one has ever escaped, and as I must die anyhow, I will take you to the town if this gives you pleasure."

I could not of course hear of this. My first step to secure her safety could not reasonably be a step which would ensure her death. I asked her, however, how these overseeing gods--the police of the town, as I figured it--would recognise her.

"By the pictures," she said. "They have pictures of every one of us. My picture is put up throughout the town on the walls of houses."

"I see," I said. "If I go to the town at all I will go alone. Shall I be in any danger from your people?"

"None. You wear the grey garments. True, you do not walk like a god, and you suffer from short arms, as I do. But would you be safe from the gods themselves?"

"Yes," I said. "I have something that was given to me to show them. It is a sign that they are not to injure me."

"Injure?" she echoed. "The gods injure nobody. They kill when it is necessary, but they do not injure. If one has a crooked spine, or if one falls sick, or if one has lived too long, or if one refuses obedience, as I have done, then of course they must die. It is the law. The gods themselves have told us that in the old days our forefathers were beaten or shut up in prisons or their goods were taken away from them. This was called punishment. We are free from all that. We have food and shelter, we have light and warmth, we have times of work and times of play. No one punishes us. That is why it is our duty to love the gods."

"Who taught you to say that?"

"They taught it me themselves. It is one of the first things that a child learns. But I grow weary of sitting here and telling you the things that everybody knows. Will you come with me through the forest and down to the shore where the caves are where I sleep?"

I assented. She rose up and draped her garment anew about her. As we walked side by side I asked her if she was not afraid of sleeping in the caves. Surely there first of all the gods would go to look for her.

"No," she said. "Never. No god has ever been inside those caves since the creature came out of the sea and lived there."

"What creature?"

"How should I know? It was more than fifty years ago, and none of us live for fifty years. But I have heard the story as it is told by my people. The creature that came out of the sea was something like a serpent, but larger than all serpents. Those who looked into its eyes died of horror. Two of the gods died. It went away into the caves, and no one has ever seen it again. I suppose it still lives there waiting for something. But it is far away in the very heart of the caves where I never go. If I heard it moving I should awake at once, for I sleep but lightly, and so I should save myself. If I could remain always in the caves I need have no fear of the gods, but one must have the sun, and water to swim in, and food to eat. Is that not so?"

I agreed with her. "But," I said, "in the forest you are in constant danger."

"Only on calm days. When the wind blows the gods will not go into the forest. That is well known, but I do not know what the reason is."

I knew perfectly well. I had already learned their fear of something falling on them. Over-civilisation had broken up their nerves and rendered them flaccid and spiritless. They had no reason to fear the wild cattle with the death-rod in their hands. They had no reason to fear the docile race that they had tamed in ignorance to serve them. But the limb of a tree might fall, or a cave might be haunted. I grew to hate these first-class beings, as they called themselves.

She began now to ask me questions about the land from which I had come, and all that I told her was subjected to her barbarian criticism. She was perfectly shocked at hearing of hospitals, and regarded the whole of the medical fraternity as impious. "If those who are weak and sickly are patched up and made to live a little longer, is there not a danger that they will have children who will also be weak and sickly, and so much more trouble be made? We see that this is so with the beasts that we rear, and the plants that we cultivate. Is it not so with men also?"

I had to admit that it was. But I pointed out to her that in my country we regarded many other things besides physical perfection.

"So I have already observed," she said, with almost embarrassing frankness. "Are the women of your country beautiful?"

"Some of them are very beautiful. Some, I fear, are not beautiful at all."

"Then why do they live? It must be very unpleasant. Are any of them more beautiful than I am?"

"I have never seen anyone, Dream, as beautiful as you are."

"Say that again," she said, "it makes a pleasing sound."

I did not say it again. I felt my responsibilities towards this beautiful but wholly barbarous creature. It seemed to me my duty at the very first to purge her mind of her superstitions about that deformed, intelligent, and learned section of humanity in whose divine character she had been taught to believe.

"If your masters are indeed gods, as you say, why did they not destroy the creature from the sea?"

"Two of them went out to kill it, but they saw its eyes and horror overcame them so that they died. After that they saw that this was a very evil creature, and in their wisdom they left it alone."

"They must be poor creatures to be so easily frightened to death. In my country we could not believe in gods that ever die. Yet the very first of your masters that I saw when I reached this island has since died and his body has been burned."

"His body--yes. But he himself still lives. I was taught these things by the gods when I was a child, and it is wrong of you to try and make me think otherwise."

I began to realise the tremendous strength of early impression. I could call to mind that I had seen evidence enough of it before ever I came to Thule. It seemed almost impossible for me--one man--to fight against this crafty and complex organisation of tyranny and slavery that was here blindly accepted. I turned to another of her terrors--her terror of the sea.

"Do you swim well?" I asked her.

She laughed. "One swims as one walks or runs. Why not? You ask such strange things."

"Very well then," I said, "you shall swim in the sea."

"No. The sea is the evil water. If one had only that water to drink, one would die. Is that not so?"

"It is, but----"

"Very well then. We are rightly taught not to touch the sea. You speak to me sometimes very much as if you were a god, and you boast of freedom, and you have come all the way from a far-off country; but you yourself would not dare to enter the sea."

It was my turn to laugh. "I am going to swim in it this evening," I said.

"I implore you not to do it," said Dream.

"I shall come to no harm."

"You will most certainly die."

"You will see that I shall not."

"It would be a pity, because I myself perhaps may escape death yet for a few days longer, and I might begin to love you."

We had now reached the entrance to the caves.

 

CHAPTER IX

The side of the brown sandstone cliff was perforated like a gigantic rabbit warren. I judged the cliffs to be natural in character, but in the labyrinth of passages and rooms upon which one first entered, much artificial work had been done. In places columns of brick upheld the roof, and the walls had been trimmed and levelled by a tool. I guessed--for it was a point upon which Dream could tell me nothing--that the lords of Thule had at one time some intention of making use of these natural excavations, and that they had been frightened from their task by the absurd superstition which Dream had recounted to me. I could not believe in the marvellous amphibious monster that had come out of the sea, and for fifty years or more had lived in the heart of these cliffs.

I told Dream of my doubts, but she was not to be shaken. The track of the animal when it went in had been clearly visible, and no track had been found to show that it had gone out again.

"On what then does it live?" I asked.

"Things that it finds in the water."

"But you tell me that it has never gone back to the sea again."

"Never. But far within the caves--much farther than I have ever gone--there is a great lake. It lives there. I will take you to a place where you can hear the roar of the water falling into the lake. Follow me closely or you may lose yourself."

She took me through many winding passages until she reached a point where she knelt and put her ear to the ground. She made me do the same. I could certainly hear the sound of running water below me, but that did not prove the existence of the lake, much less of the monster that was supposed to inhabit the lake. I told her this, and she did not like it.

"When you found me in the forest," she said, "I was very sad because I had spoken to no one for many days, and I was to die and there was no escape. Then because of your companionship and because you seem to hope and to fear nothing, I became lifted up again. It is necessary for you to think as I think, or I shall grow sad again. Therefore you must believe in the great serpent."

"We will not speak of him. Show me where you sleep."

She took me by a passage that rapidly grew narrower until I could hardly force my way into the chamber beyond. It was a simple sleeping-apartment containing a bed of dried bracken and nothing more.

"Yes," she said, "I chose this place because the passage was so narrow and the great serpent which was in the lake was so big. Here he could not get to me."

"And how do you manage about food?"

"I have plenty--far too much. Every night some one or other of my people brings food and puts it at the entrance of the cave. They do not go near to the cave because they believe in the serpent, not being so wise as you are. I would not go into the cave myself were it not that I have to die anyhow."

"But do your gods permit this?"

"I do not know. They do not care to come very near to the caves. I myself think that they do know that food is brought to me and do not wish to prevent it. They have only one punishment. They would not starve me slowly. They would point the death-rod at me and burn my heart out in an instant. But you remind me that I have become very hungry after my swim. You also must think as I do and be hungry too, and we will eat together."

She showed me another room nearer to the entrance where she kept her supplies. They were simple enough. There was a pile of thin sweet biscuit and another pile of dried fruit. This in colour and flavour was like a raisin, but four times the size.

"That grows in the forest," said Dream. "In the autumn when the fresh fruit is ripe it is very good indeed. I shall not live to pick any more of it, and for that I am very sorry."

She was still, I think, rather offended with me for my disbelief in the creature that came out of the sea, but on the whole we chatted amicably enough. I can see now that I did a clumsy thing in thus suddenly and crudely trying to upset a tradition in which she had grown up. It is not perhaps very desirable to shake the faith of anybody in anything, unless that faith be distinctly and immediately harmful. I am a simple seaman and unused to missionary work, and it is small wonder that I bungled it.

After we had feasted, Dream went off to her bed of bracken and I once more climbed the hill to watch the sea. All that afternoon I watched, using at times my perspective-glass, but never once could I make out a sail.

I may admit that my plans were now changed and that the change was entirely due to the strong fascination which Dream had for me--far stronger than I cared to let her know at present. I no longer cared to explore the town or to find out more of the condition of the workers than Dream herself could tell me. I had decided to throw in my lot with her and, if it were possible, to save her from the cruel death with which she was threatened. How I was to do this I did not know. I could only wait and see what chance might offer itself.

I cut bracken for my bed, and laden with this I made my way back to the cave again. There Dream awaited me and all traces of her ill-humour had vanished. I did not insist on my swim in the sea that night, lest it should pain her further. We sat and talked together until the stars came out. It was the first time since I had been on the island that I had looked up at the stars. I could find nothing that I recognised. I wondered where in the world or out of the world I now found myself. The problem did not disturb me greatly. It was pleasant to sit and hear Dream's recital of her story of the squirrel that she captured and tamed. Her voice was curiously soft and caressing.

Soon she went back to her bed and I spread my bracken in the door of the cave and lay down. It was in the night that her people came to bring her food, and I wished if possible to see them and to speak with them.

But this experiment turned out ill. I had slept but an hour when I was awakened by a footfall, and looking out from the cave I saw striding towards me a man who bore a tray on his head. But when he was within a hundred yards of the cave he set the tray down and turned back again. I called out that I was a friend and would speak with him, but I do not think he understood what I said, and the sound of a strange voice filled him with terror. He ran off at the top of his speed.

Early that morning I had my swim in the sea, but on my return I said nothing to Dream about it. I told her, however, how the man had run away when he heard my voice the night before.

"You did not do this very well," said Dream. "You told me that you did not wish to go to the town any more and that you would remain with me. But it seems that I am not enough and that you do wish to speak with others. Very well then. This night I will watch outside the cave and I will go to the man who brings the food and I will bring him in to you. He is, I think, a man who loves me very much indeed."

I told her that I had changed my mind and did not wish to see the man. A brisk wind was blowing and we spent most of the day in the forest together. Again from time to time I scanned the horizon with my perspective-glass, and again with no result whatever. I wondered in what deserted sea this island might be placed. Throughout the day Dream was silent and thoughtful, but she was in no immediate fear, knowing that on such a day her gods would not enter the forest. Next morning I went for my swim in the sea again, and on my return Dream told me that she knew what I had done. She had seen me swimming far out.

"Why did you not tell me you had done this?"

"I feared to disturb your mind."

"I am not a child and am not to be treated as a child. I can think as you think about the sea if I like. I dare do anything that you dare to do."

I told her that I had no doubt of it. Rain fell for the greater part of that day and we remained in the cave talking. She told me of the life she had led and of the laws by which her people were governed.

I have said that I had begun to hate the lords of Thule--the first-class beings as they designated themselves--the gods, as the poor ignorant workers supposed them to be. I hate them still. I despise their sexless emasculate nervousness. I despise their want of the warmer sins and their subjection to the colder. I despise their selfishness even while I admire their wisdom.

Yet, if I am to speak honestly, their despotism--not benevolent and wholly self-interested--produced a finer race of workers than is to be found in my own country to-day. They were better fed, better clothed, better housed. They were healthier--disease was almost unknown--and they were happier. I use the last word deliberately. The cruelty with which they were treated--and to our modern minds it was abominable cruelty--was after all not capricious cruelty. It proceeded on laws as immutable as the laws of nature. The mother of the weakling who saw her child destroyed at any rate knew why; and when the lightning strikes the best and most promising of us we do not know why. Every man was specially trained for special work, and his own inclination was always taken into account; for the greater the inclination, the greater--as a rule--the aptitude. The view taken of women was definitely animal, and only in exceptional cases were women allowed to live beyond the age of forty-five. On the other hand, no woman was worked hard; women who were about to be mothers or had recently become mothers, were treated with a delicate consideration far beyond anything to be found in our Factory Acts; and no woman was influenced in her choice of a mate by vulgar claims of a financial or social character. The children were free from the thwarting and snubbing and the curse of competitive examination which we are pleased to call education. Each child was taught a few essentials very thoroughly. The training was in each case individual and based on a clever study of the child's nature. If reading or writing or arithmetic was unnecessary for the work which the child would ultimately be called upon to do, then none of these things was taught. It might almost be said that the children were spoiled. But they learned early the immutable and inexorable nature of the laws imposed on their race.

Towards the close of this day Dream became once more sad and depressed. Suddenly she rose and said that she was going back to her own people in the town.

"But," I said, "you know that this means death."

"There is one thing worse than death which may happen to a woman. It is useless for you to try to prevent me. If I cannot go to the town, then to-morrow I shall eat the poison berries in the forest."

I had intended, if ever I could find the way, to take Dream back with me to my own country and there to marry her. It seemed to me now that there was no hope of this. I make no defence of what I said or did. I do not know if under those circumstances any defence is needed. But I told Dream that she need not seek the death-rod of her gods or the poison berries of the forest, because the one thing which is worse than death had not happened to her.

 

CHAPTER X

There followed sixteen days of such great and idyllic happiness that for that alone it seems worth while to have lived my life. Dream lost her terror of the sea and every morning swam out with me. Sometimes we would catch trout in the forest pools, and these I would clean and cook in the manner I had learned in the South Seas, on hot stones and ashes, getting fire from the sun by means of the lens of my perspective-glass. But this we could only hazard on days when the wind blew strongly, lest the smoke of our fire should signal our whereabouts. I was not able to shake Dream's belief in the creature that came out of the sea, but she seemed no longer to have any fear of that or of anything.

"When death comes," she said, "it will come to both of us. Every day is a gain. Yet, when one cannot possibly be happier, it is not hard to die. One has drunk the wine of life."

I had it in my mind to attempt some further exploration of the caves. In this I had been so far prevented by the fact that we had no means of lighting ourselves. It was on the morning of the sixteenth day that I found in the forest wood of a very resinous character which I guessed would make good torches. I got me a store of this and carried it down to the cave, telling Dream what I meant to do.

"I shall go with you," she said. Nor could I dissuade her from it.

We kept a small fire burning at the entrance to the cave that day, and when the sun had gone down we lit our torches from the fire and started off, taking no other equipment than my clasp-knife and a lump of chalk with which to mark our way in the labyrinth.

We soon reached a point where but two roads were left, each so wide and lofty that a coach and four might easily have been driven along it. One of these roads led upwards, and I made no doubt emerged on the farther side of the hill. The other one struck more abruptly downward, and this was the road which we took. Here, if it existed at all, I should find the subterranean lake. As we went on, the noise of falling water became more and more distinct. I was excited by the adventure and eager to see more.

Presently the road widened into a vast hall, so vast that our torches could not illumine the farthest recesses of it. And here it was as well that I looked carefully to each step, for I found myself suddenly on the edge of a precipice. Lying flat on my stomach and holding out my torch, I could see a vast stretch of black water below, into which at one end a cataract thundered. In the middle of this lake there projected something which looked like a smooth boulder of rock. I wondered what it might be.

"We have plenty of torches?" asked Dream.

"Plenty."

"Then we will see what it is."

She waved her torch round her head till it was all ablaze and then flung it down. It fell on that great mass in the middle of the lake. The mass turned slowly over, showing shaggy hair matted with slime. The smell of burning hair came up to us and with it a deep groan that seemed to shake the cave.

We fled in panic. I must indeed ascribe it to chance and to no courage of my own that I kept my grip of the torch. We did not even pause to look at the chalk marks we had made for our guidance, and in consequence found ourselves lost for a while in the labyrinth of passages at the entrance to the cave. At last we found the way out and made our way to the forest. There we spent the remainder of the night, wakeful and talking of the wonders we had seen. It was the last night that we spent together.

The sun had scarcely risen when I saw a few feet away from us a little smoke flickering over the powdered soil.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That is the end," said Dream. "We shall die together."

Rapidly the smoke, which did not rise and disperse, became more opaque, vibrating until it took solid shape. Before us leered the misshapen head and bright beady eyes of the Professor.

His right hand covered with a rubber glove slipped out of the boot and drew forth the death-rod.

"The stranger dies first," he said, and pointed the rod at me. Dream clung to me. I felt a sensation as of fire in my throat.

And now comes what seems to me--though it may not so seem to others--the strangest part of my story. Passing through a kind of swoon, I found myself gently rocked as on board a ship. Opening my eyes I saw two men bending over me. One of them held a glass containing brandy to my lips.

"You see?" said a voice triumphantly. "The beggar's alive and I win my bet."

I found afterwards that I was on board the steamship Hermione bound from Alexandria to Cardiff with a cargo of cotton seed. I had been found senseless at the bottom of an open boat. I was treated with plenty of rough kindness and brought back to my own country; but over the story which I told them the crew shook their heads gravely.

Since then nothing of import happened to me until I was brought to this great barrack-like place where I now live in fair comfort. There are many doctors here and many guests. Some of the guests, I fear, have an aberration of the intellect, for they say strange things. I am well contented. I have lived my life. But since no one will listen to my marvellous experiences in the island of Thule--or if they listen at all make a jest of them--I have written them down here for the service of another and a wiser generation.

[The end]
Barry Pain's short story: New Gulliver

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