Caesar's Column Part 32

The crowd yelled and the fire roared. The next house was blazing now, and the roof of the one nearest us was smoking. The mob, perceiving that we did not move, concluded that the machinery of the air-ship was broken, and screamed with joy as the flames approached us.

Up, up, went bundle and package and box; faster, and faster, and faster. We were not to be intimidated by fire or mobs! The roof of the house next us was now blazing, and we could hear the fire, like a furnace, roaring within it.

The work is finished; every parcel is safe.

"Up, up, men!"

Max and I were the last to leave the roof; it had become insufferably hot. We stood on the deck; the engineer touched the lever of the electric engine; the great bird swayed for an instant, and then began to rise, like a veritable Phoenix from its nest of flame, surrounded by cataracts of sparks. As the mob saw us ascend, veiled dimly, at first, by that screen of conflagration, they groaned with dismay and disappointment. The bullets flew and hissed around us, but our metallic sides laughed them to scorn. Up, up, straight and swift as an arrow we rose. The mighty city lay unrolled below us, like a great map, starred here and there with burning houses. Above the trees of Union Square, my gla.s.s showed me a white line, lighted by the bon-fires, where Caesar's Column was towering to the skies, bearing the epitaph of the world.

I said to Max:

"What will those millions do to-morrow?"

"Starve," he said.

"What will they do next week?"

"Devour each other," he replied.

There was silence for a time.

"Will not civil government rise again out of this ruin?" I asked.

"Not for a long time," he replied. "Ignorance, pa.s.sion, suspicion, brutality, criminality, will be the lions in the path. Men who have such dreadful memories of labor can scarcely be forced back into it.

And who is to employ them? After about three-fourths of the human family have died of hunger, or been killed, the remainder, const.i.tuting, by the law of the survival of the fittest, the most powerful and brutal, will find it necessary, for self-defense against each other, to form squads or gangs. The greatest fighter in each of these will become chief, as among all savages. Then the history of the world will be slowly repeated. A bold ruffian will conquer a number of the adjacent squads, and become a king. Gradually, and in its rudest forms, labor will begin again; at first exercised princ.i.p.ally by slaves. Men will exchange liberty for protection.

After a century or two a kind of commerce may arise. Then will follow other centuries of wars, between provinces or nations. A new aristocracy will spring up. Culture will lift its head. A great power, like Rome in the old world, may arise. Some vast superst.i.tion may take possession of the world; and Alfred, Victoria and Washington may be worshiped, as Saturn, Juno and Hercules were in the past; with perhaps dreadful and b.l.o.o.d.y rites like those of the Carthaginians and ancient Mexicans. And so, step by step, mankind will re-enact the great human drama, which begins always with a tragedy, runs through a comedy, and terminates in a catastrophe."

The city was disappearing--we were over the ocean--the cool salt breeze was refreshing. We both looked back.

"Think," I said, "what is going on yonder."

Max shuddered. There was a sullen light in his eyes. He looked at his father, who was on his knees praying.

"I would destroy the world," he said, "to save him from a living death."

He was justifying himself unto himself.

"Gabriel," he said, after a pause, "if this outbreak had not occurred now, yet would it certainly have come to pa.s.s. It was but a question of time. The breaking-strain on humanity was too great. The world could not have gone on; neither could it have turned back. The crash was inevitable. It may be G.o.d's way of wiping off the blackboard. It may be that the ancient legends of the destruction of our race by flood and fire are but dim remembrances of events like that which is now happening."

"It may be so, Max," I replied; and we were silent.

Even the sea bore testimony to the ruin of man. The lighthouses no longer held up their fingers of flame to warn the mariner from the treacherous rocks. No air-ship, brilliant with many lights shining like innumerable eyes, and heavy with pa.s.sengers, streamed past us with fierce swiftness, splitting the astonished and complaining air.

Here and there a sailing vessel, or a steamer, toiled laboriously along, little dreaming that, at their journey's end, starving creatures would swarm up their sides to kill and devour.

How still and peaceful was the night--the great, solemn, patient night! How sweet and pure the air! How delightful the silence to ears that had rung so lately with the clamors of that infuriated mob! How pleasant the darkness to eyeb.a.l.l.s seared so long by fire and flame and sights of murder! Estella and Christina came and sat down near us. Their faces showed the torture they had endured,--not so much from fear as from the shock and agony with which goodness contemplates terrific and triumphant evil.

I looked into the grand depths of the stars above us; at that endless procession of shining worlds; at that illimitable expanse of silence.

And I thought of those vast gaps and lapses of manless time, when all these starry hosts unrolled and marshaled themselves before the attentive eyes of G.o.d, and it had not yet entered into his heart to create that swarming, writhing, crawling, contentious ma.s.s we call humanity. And I said to myself, "Why should a G.o.d condescend to such a work as man?"

And yet, again, I felt that one grateful heart, that darted out the living line of its love and adoration from this dark and perturbed earth, up to the shining throne of the Great Intelligence, must be of more moment and esteem in the universe than millions of tons of mountains--yea, than a wilderness of stars. For matter is but the substance with which G.o.d works; while thought, love, conscience and consciousness are parts of G.o.d himself. We think; therefore we are divine: we pray; therefore we are immortal.

Part of G.o.d! The awful, the inexpressible, the incomprehensible G.o.d.

His terrible hand swirls, with unresting power, yonder innumerable congregation of suns in their mighty orbits, and yet stoops, with tender touch, to build up the petals of the anemone, and paint with rainbow hues the mealy wings of the b.u.t.terfly.

I could have wept over man; but I remembered that G.o.d lives beyond the stars.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

EUROPE

The next day we were flying over the ocean. The fluctuous and changeable waves were beneath us, with their mult.i.tudinous hues and colors, as light and foam and billows mingled. Far as the eye could reach, they seemed to be climbing over each other forever, like the endless compet.i.tions of men in the arena of life. Above us was the panorama of the clouds--so often the harbingers of terror; for even in their gentlest forms they foretell the tempest, which is ever gathering the mists around it like a garment, and, however slow-paced, is still advancing.

A whale spouted. Happy nature! How cunningly were the wet, sliding waves accommodated to that smooth skin and those nerves which rioted in the play of the tumbling waters. A school of dolphins leaped and gamboled, showing their curved backs to the sun in sudden glimpses; a vast family; merry, social, jocund, abandoned to happiness. The gulls flew about us as if our ship was indeed a larger bird; and I thought of the poet's lines wherein he describes--

"The gray gull, balanced on its bow-like wings, Between two black waves, seeking where to dive."

And here were more kindly adjustments. How the birds took advantage of the wind and made it lift them or sink them, or propel them forward; tacking, with infinite skill, right in the eye of the gale, like a sailing-vessel. It was not toil--it was delight, rapture--the very glory and ecstasy of living. Everywhere the benevolence of G.o.d was manifest: light, sound, air, sea, clouds, beast, fish and bird; we were in the midst of all; we were a part of all; we rejoiced in all.

And then my thoughts reverted to the great city; to that congregation of houses; to those streets swarming with murderers; to that hungry, moaning mult.i.tude.

Why did they not listen to me? Why did rich and poor alike mock me?

If they had not done so, this dreadful cup might have been averted from their lips. But it would seem as if faith and civilization were incompatible. Christ was only possible in a barefooted world; and the few who wore shoes murdered him. What dark perversity was it in the blood of the race that made it wrap itself in misery, like a garment, while all nature was happy?

Max told me that we had had a narrow escape. Of the three messengers we had sent forth to General Quincy, but one reached him; the others had been slain on the streets. And when the solitary man fought his way through to the armory he found the Mamelukes of the Air full of preparations for a flight that night to the mountain regions of South America. Had we delayed our departure for another day, or had all three of our messengers been killed by the marauders, we must all have perished in the midst of the flames of the burning building. We joined Mr. Phillips, therefore, with unwonted heartiness in the morning prayers.

The next day we came in sight of the sh.o.r.es of Europe. As we drew near, we pa.s.sed over mult.i.tudes of open boats, river steamers and ships of all kinds, crowded with people. Many of these vessels were unfitted for a sea voyage, but the horrors they fled from were greater than those the great deep could conjure up. Their occupants shouted to us, through speaking-trumpets, to turn back; that all Europe was in ruins. And we, in reply, warned them of the condition of things in America, and advised them to seek out uncivilized lands, where no men dwelt but barbarians.

As we neared the sh.o.r.e we could see that the beaches, wharves and tongues of sand were everywhere black with people, who struggled like madmen to secure the few boats or ships that remained. With such weapons as they had hurriedly collected they fought back the better-armed ma.s.ses of wild and desperate men who hung upon their skirts, plying the dreadful trade of murder. Some of the agonized mult.i.tude shrieked to us for help. Our hearts bled for them, but we could do nothing. Their despairing hands were held up to us in supplication as the air-ship darted over them.

But why dilate upon the dreadful picture that unrolled beneath us?

Hamlets, villages, towns, cities, blackened and smoking ma.s.ses of ruin. The conflicts were yet raging on every country road and city street; we could hear the shrieks of the flying, the rattle of rifles and pistols in the hands of the pursuers. Desolation was everywhere.

Some even rushed out and fired their guns viciously at us, as if furious to see anything they could not destroy. Never before did I think mankind was so base. I realized how much of the evil in human nature had been for ages suppressed and kept in subjection by the iron force of law and its terrors. Was man the joint product of an angel and a devil? Certainly in this paroxysm of fate he seemed to be demoniacal.

We turned southward over the trampled gardens and vineyards of France. A great volcanic lava field of flame and ashes--burning, smoking--many miles in extent--showed where Paris had been. Around it ragged creatures were prowling, looking for something to eat, digging up roots in the fields. At one place, in the open country, I observed, ahead of us, a tall and solitary tree in a field; near it were the smouldering ruins of a great house. I saw something white moving in the midst of the foliage, near the top of the tree. I turned my gla.s.s upon it. It was a woman, holding something in her arms.

"Can we not take her up?" I asked the captain of the airship.

"We cannot stop the vessel in that distance--but we might return to it," he replied.

"Then do so, for G.o.d's sake," I said.

We swooped downward. We pa.s.sed near the tree. The woman screamed to us to stop, and held up an infant. Christina and Estella and all the other women wept. We pa.s.sed the tree--the despairing cries of the woman were dreadful to listen to. But she takes courage; sees us sweep about; we come slowly back; we stop; a rope ladder falls; I descend; I grasp the child's clothes between my teeth; I help the woman up the ladder. She falls upon the deck of the ship, and cries out in French: "Spare my child!" Dreadful period! when every human being is looked upon as a murderer. The women comfort her. Her clothes are in rags, but upon her fingers are costly jewels. Her babe is restored to her arms; she faints with hunger and exhaustion. For three days, she tells us, she has been hidden in that tree, without food or drink; and has seen all dear to her perish--all but her little Francois. And with what delight Estella and Christina and the rest cuddle and feed the pretty, chubby, hungry little stranger!

Thank G.o.d for the angel that dwells in human nature. And woe unto him who bids the devil rise to cast it out!

Max, during all this day, is buried in profound thought. He looks out at the desolated world and sighs. Even Christina fails to attract his attention. Why should he be happy when there is so much misery? Did he not help to cause it?

But, after a time, we catch sight of the blue and laughing waters of the Mediterranean, with its pleasant, bosky islands. This is gone, and in a little while the yellow sands of the great desert stretch beneath us, and extend ahead of us, far as the eye can reach. We pa.s.s a toiling caravan, with its awkward, shuffling, patient camels, and its dark attendants. They have heard nothing, in these solitudes, of the convulsions that rend the world. They pray to Allah and Mahomet and are happy. The hot, blue, cloudless sky rises in a great dome above their heads; their food is scant and rude, but in their veins there burn not those wild fevers of ambition which have driven mankind to such frenzies and horrors. They live and die as their ancestors did, ten thousand years ago--unchangeable as the stars above their heads; and these are even as they shone clear and bright when the Chaldean shepherds first studied the outlines of the constellations, and marked the pathways of the wandering planets.