The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars Part 10

"I could see the struggle between the mortality of Chapman, born of doubt, and his unfittedness and apathy, and the spiritual power of the brave Superintendent. The flame of life in Chapman would be stimulated or excited, and then flicker and die down. These alterations lasted but a short time. Soon Chapman pa.s.sed into stupor, and then death supervened, and the strange and seldom known circ.u.mstance of death among the supernaturals in Mars was realized.

"Alca kept the body of Chapman, which would be sent back to the City of Light, and cremated in the Temple of Glorification--which I have not seen. He intended to accompany it. He sent me on to Scandor. I had now learned enough of the Martian language to speak, imperfectly. That mental facility, which is the amazing and most wonderful thing in Mars, was perhaps more slowly roused in me. But daily I became known, and more alert and inflamed with thought and the eager intuition of the Martians.

"We started from the great Quarry of Sinsi, and I was alone with the Martians on the porcelain boat, now made by this tragic fate the amba.s.sador from the City of Light to the Council in Scandor.

"The sterile, sinister and yet marvellous region of lava beds, dikes and conic craters suddenly was pa.s.sed, and the ca.n.a.l moved into the huge forest lands of the Ribi wood.

"This is a beautiful land. Mountain ranges rising from four to six thousand feet cross it, holding broad valleys and plains, or elevated plateaus between them; lakes and rivers pa.s.s through it, and villages and towns with a mixed population of the supernaturals and the prehistorics are frequent. The ca.n.a.ls cross the great region in many directions. The trunk line I followed was carried up and down by systems of locks of astounding magnitude and perfection. Great lakes were made convenient feeders, and rivers were also tapped to keep the water levels constant in the ca.n.a.ls. The weather was that of a semi-tropical paradise, and the late flowers of the Ribi filled the air with fragrance.

"Quickly we approached Scandor. It was a clear, calm day when we emerged from the Ribi country, and the pilot pointed out to me the distant hills, almost purple in a twilight haze, which encircled the Valley of the City of Scandor. The country we had entered was a fertile farm country, where great plantations of the Rint, and vineyards of the Oma grapes were established, and where great flocks of the Imilta dove, almost the only meat eaten by the Martians, are raised. The enormous flocks of this snow-white bird were strangely beautiful. They made clouds in the air, and their purring notes when they settled in white blankets over the fields, were heard pulsating over long distances.

"Finally we came to the last tier of locks at the summit of which my curiosity was to be satisfied by a view of the great City of Scandor, the City of Gla.s.s.

"It was night when our china boat floated upon the waters of the last lock that completed the ascent, and immediately below the observatory Station or Settlement of Scandor. I was standing on the deck of the boat, watching impatiently the slowly rising tide upon which we were borne upward. I could at first see as we ascended the towers of the observatory station. Above me, looking at us with interest, on the walls of the lock, was a company of Martians. The night was cloudy, and the lights of the hastening satellites were but intermittently evident.

Gradually my head pa.s.sed upward beyond the obstructing interference of wall and gate and fence, and the glorious and unimaginable splendor of the City of Scandor, like some monstrous continental opal, lay before me in the immediate valley.

"The glistening panes of water below me marked the places of the descending line of locks. Around me were the buildings of the Scandor Observatory, and to the right and left swept the forested slopes of a circular range which, as I later saw, ranged about in one amphitheatrical circuit the, great vale of Scandor. But only an instant's glance could be spared for this detail. The divine City glowing below me seemed to magnetize attention, and control, through its wonderfulness each wavering att.i.tude of interest. My son, the eye of man never beheld so astonishing a picture. Imagine a city reaching twenty miles in all directions built of gla.s.s variously designed, interrupted by tall towers, pyramids, minarets, steeples, light, fantastic and beautiful structures, all aflame, or rather softly radiating a variously colored glory of light.

"Imagine this great area of building, penetrated by broad avenues, radiating like the spokes of a wheel from a center where rose upward to the sky a colossal amphitheatre. Imagine these roads, delineated to the eye by tall chimneys or tubes of gla.s.s through which played an electric current, converting each one into a lambent pillar. Imagine between these paths of greenish opalescence the squares of buildings of domed, arched and castellated roofs, pierced and starred, and spread in lines and patterns of white electric lamps. The n.o.ble proportions of the larger buildings, the graceful outlines of turreted or campanulate erections, and the smaller houses were all defined. I could see ca.n.a.ls or rivers of water winding through the City spanned by arches of flame, and even the symmetrical disposition of the dark-leaved trees was visible.

"But the night was still further turned to day, for above the City, high in the velvet black empyrean were suspended thousands of gla.s.s balloons, each emitting the Geissler-like illumination that marked the lines of streets. So full and opulent was the flood of light, that the summit I had reached, the encircling hills, and the farther side of the saucer-shaped valley where Scandor lay, were bathed in an equally diffused radiation.

"But, as if the heavenly marvel might still further startle and amaze and charm me, from the City rose the swelling chords of choruses; billows of sound, softened by distance, beat in melodious surges on the high encompa.s.sing lands.

"I stood mute and transfixed. It seemed a beatific vision. If the very air had been filled with ascending choruses of angels, if the dark zenith had opened and revealed the throne of the Almighty, it would have seemed but a congruous and expected climax.

"Long I gazed, and slowly, very slowly became conscious of the great numbers of people about me, and that they were being augmented by new arrivals. The porcelain barge I had come in from the City of Light, was moored now to the side of the lock. I had disembarked, carrying almost mechanically in my hand, the chest in which the communications from the Patenta to the Council were locked.

"It was perhaps only a short interval before the pilot woke me from my trance, saying in Martian: 'This is the Observation Hill of Scandor.

These are Scandor's Observatories. I hear there is seen by the observers some approaching danger in the heavens. These citizens of Scandor are crowding from the City to hear the latest reports. There is a messenger from the Council here waiting on the observers. I will bring him to you, and you and the messenger can at once be conveyed to the Council.'

"I looked at him speechless, yet unable to again realize I lived and breathed in another world. It seemed as if a sudden motion, a cry, a whisper even, would break the chrysalis of sleep about me, and plunge me into void and nothingness.

"The pilot left me, and I saw him thread his way amongst the lines of people, moving toward the dark walls of the observatory that covered the hill. At long intervals rockets rose from the opposite rim of the great circular ridge around the City, scarring the deep, inky vault about us with lines of fire. They ascended to an enormous distance. Almost instantly these were apparently answered by similar rockets in other colors from the hill I stood on.

"There was a sudden movement about me. The pilot had returned. With him came the messenger. I flung my absorption from me. I was a Martian. The light of recognition came back again to my eyes--my tongue was loosened, my senses accommodated themselves to the stupendous circ.u.mstances about me. I spoke first.

"'Mindo,' (the name of the pilot), 'I am ready to accompany my guide to the City. Will you go with us?'

"'No! Heboribimo,' (your excellency), 'I must stay at the locks. I shall descend to the City in the boat to-morrow. This man will bring you to the ca.n.a.l. I advise haste. There is great excitement and dread in Scandor. Mars is in the path of a comet.'

"I turned to my guide, a beautiful youth, not dressed as the citizens of the City of Light, but clothed in a tight fitting doublet of a creamy blue, with short trunks of yellow, and on his feet were sandals. He saluted me, and together we descended the broad boulevard between the widely separated l.u.s.tres that became more crowded as they ma.s.sed like a progressive deepening of color into the eddying splendors of the City itself.

"Again I realized how swift is motion in Mars. We wished to reach the City, and we glided to it by the rapid propulsion of desire. The broad way was filled with lines and groups of peoples cl.u.s.tering to the hilltop--and over the far-reaching slopes I could see the awaiting throngs. My guide pointed to the constellation of Perseus, and I could discern a nebulous ma.s.s of considerable diameter from which proceeded a wisp-like exhalation, just a phantasmal fan of phosph.o.r.escence, behind it.

"The glory of the City fell around us now; we were in its broad streets beneath the towering pillars of light that framed them in a fence of splendor. On we pressed, but I glanced from side to side, noting the great gla.s.s houses and buildings, here colonnades of translucent opalescent beauty, made up of hollow tubes of gla.s.s holding an interior illumination, and clambered over by vines whose expanding leaves formed a tracery of silhouettes upon their sides.

"Still on, past porticos and under arches, through open forum-like squares, from which were elevated the great gla.s.s globes I have described, which hung lamp-like in the sky,--past palaces and arcades, blocks of low stores in iridescent tints, and long, straight fronts of white opaque buildings, through occasional tunnels into which we plunged as into a sea of radiance, and on, out, past a few squares of black umbrageous trees that seemed like dead coals laid on the heat quivering hearth of a furnace, past minarets of curling, entwined filagrees of gla.s.s threads, past dull or darker areas where the huge gla.s.s factories were built, their forges glowing like Cyclops' eyes in the night, and from which was produced the colossal sum of manufacture, which this great City embodied.

"It was a strange bewilderment of marvels, and from it all, as if it were its interior motive and cause, sprang light. It was electric in origin, conveyed in some peculiar manner from a great source of power, in the high falls of Zenapa, near the City. But this I learned later.

"I divined that we were approaching the center of the city. Soon, indeed, I saw before me the sparkling walls of the amphitheatre I had descried from the hill of Observation at the locks. Here it is, that the great plays, the gigantic concerts, the operas, and services of the Pan-Tan are held. It was a seraphic, astounding picture. It rose in the midst of a great square of many acres in extent, where the light, purposely subdued, allowed its dazzling beauty subdued isolation. How wonderful! I stopped. For one instant, before hurrying on, I gazed upon a miracle of constructive and decorative art. One hundred columns of red gla.s.s rose upward, and between them was a wall, in tiers of green gla.s.s arches, and on the keystone of each a pink globe of fire. From the pillars sprang, in an inverted terrace formation, metallic brackets, carrying gorgeous chandeliers of a red bronze; the largest chandeliers were at the very upper edge of the building, and the cascade of light thus shed upon the splendid fabric was indescribably magnificent.

"But there was small time for wonder or examination. We swept on through the shadowy gardens about it, and my guide quickly brought me to the Hall of the Council, a low, inconspicuous building of yellow brick, one of the few discordant architectural notes in the whole city.

"The doors of the single chamber, which embraced all the interior s.p.a.ce, swung open, and I stood on the threshold of a shallow, rectangular depression, surrounded on all sides with benches, and holding in its central area a long table, at which, beneath tall lamps, sat, perhaps, a dozen men and one woman. Opposite to my point of view, in a niche upon the further wall, was the colossal figure of the Deity I had seen in the Patenta at the City of Light.

"The faces of the twelve men turned to us as we entered. The herald announced my errand with the customary salutation of 'Hebori bimo.' I was invited to descend to the central table. I advanced, and laying Chapman's chest, with its sealed communications upon the table, spoke:

"'I am a stranger. I have come to your world from the Earth. I bring news, celestial news, from the astronomers of the City of Light. I had a companion to whom all this was entrusted.' He was killed in the quarries of Tiniti. I came on, bidden so to do by Alca, the Superintendent. The papers of the Wise Men of the Patenta are here.'

"I laid the chest upon the table. My speech was yet unformed, and perhaps upon the delicate and intellectual faces before me, there dwelt, with the transient influence of a pa.s.sing thought, a smile of sympathy or amus.e.m.e.nt. Then a young being at the head of the table exclaimed in Martian:

"'Welcome, stranger. All who come to us are soon made one with ourselves. The Martian spirit is that of salutation and friendship. We have heard of the discoveries in the new commotions in planetary s.p.a.ce.

Our own astronomers have announced them. This great City of Scandor, the product of many centuries' toil and invention, is apparently doomed. It lies in the path, certainly defined and determined by observers, of a small cometary ma.s.s, which will plunge upon it a rain of rock and iron.

Even now this approaching body grows more and more visible in the sky.

The astronomers are working at the problem, hoping some deflection, some interpositional mercy will carry off this disturbing incidence. But if we are to be destroyed, if there is no escape from the singular fortune of annihilation by an inrushing stream of meteoric bodies, then warning, through proclamation, shall be made, and our citizens will move out of the city to Asco, and the islands of Pinit.'

"He ceased; upon him the expectant faces of the others, a.s.sembled about the table, were fixed, and a visible tremor of dismay and grief seemed to convulse them. A few covered their faces with their hands, others stood up and gazed at the benignant colossus in bronze at the end of the room, while others, motionless, still maintained their att.i.tude of attention.

"The presiding officer, with a slight inclination of the body, raised his hand, and addressing me, said: 'You shall be the guest of our City, and if it must be that this great capital of Mars must succ.u.mb to this mysterious invasion, if this place, so long a marvel of beauty, shall be succeeded by a heap of burning stones, then you shall be our companion in pilgrimage. Remain with us until the end of this strange circ.u.mstance is known.'

"As he finished, a noise of indescribable lamentation from a mult.i.tude of voices broke upon our ears--the sound of running feet and sharp cries of amazement, crashed in upon the half ominous silence about us.

"I turned instinctively to my guide. He stood statue-like beside me, with a stealing pallor crossing his face, and then, the doors of the apartment swung open, and loud voices were heard crying, 'The Peril comes. Stand forward. To the Hills!'

"Panic, that nameless a.s.sociated mental terror of the unknown and the impending, which on Earth spreads fever-like through mult.i.tudes, had arisen amongst the Martians, and hurrying crowds were hastening in a wild retreat from the City to the hills.

"All thought of the Council, of my errand, or of the new relation I had been graciously accorded, disappeared from my mind. Frightened by the sudden premonition of destruction, bewildered by the torrent of new sensations, and even yet only half confident that my existence in the new world was altogether real, I was impelled to spring forward.

Reaching the doors, hands shot out around me, and I was swept in the tide of running forms.

"It was a living stream of manifold complexity. Only for one moment did I lose consciousness. The next I was struggling to escape from the spreading tentacles of this involved current. I leaped to the projection of a low pedestal, upon which an unfinished construction or group of statues was in progress. Holding my exposed position for an instant, I wrenched myself clear of the pulsating throngs, and succeeded in gaining the low summit above me. Here I was free to look around me. My guide was gone, the Council House was lost to view; I was alone. Below pa.s.sed the surging crowd, made up of youths and girls, with few older men or women, many beautiful, all expressing the Martian distinction, but now strangely bewildered and uncontrolled. It was a reversed emotional picture from that buoyant, frenzied throng that a few weeks ago carried me into the Hall of the Patenta.

"Faces were turned toward the sky, and hands, as if in e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, were waved up and down, or thrust in significant indices toward that fatal blurred blot of splendor in the heavens. I followed their direction. The approaching nebula had grown sensibly since an hour ago. It glittered, the size of a shield, and a light coruscation seemed emanating from its edges. The faces of the mult.i.tude were justified. The ma.s.s above us was a train of celestial missiles, hurling toward Mars. Its contact seemed more and more imminent. I felt a nameless terror. The thought of isolation in this new world, the unknown awfulness of this planetary disturbance, the sudden extinction of the hopes that were feeding my heart with a new life, and the forecasting of the impossible agonies of universal death in this great, strange place I had so wonderfully entered, overcame me. I fell sobbing to the gla.s.sy floor on which I was standing. It was again a new proof of my a.s.sumption of the ecstatic nature of these children of light and music, impulse and inspiration.

"The convulsion pa.s.sed. I felt stronger, and was quickened with a keenly prudent determination to escape from the city, find my way back to the Hill of Observation, and if possible, send you, my son, my last experience before all had become silence.

"I could see the regular ascent of the rockets from the distant hill. I found the streets about me almost emptied, the white, l.u.s.trous river of life had pa.s.sed. I descended to the pavement. The way past the splendid Amphitheatre was easily found, and then I hastened, guided by a dumb instinct of direction, toward the still ascending rockets. I came to the broad Boulevard which led to the Hill of Observation, and went on, now plainly controlled by the sweeping avenue of lamps about, and in front of me.

"I shall not pause to recount the success of my application to the astronomers to use the transmitters of the wireless telegraphy, which are as fully perfected here as at the City of Scandor.

"As my message ends, the dawn ascends from the wide margins of the Ribi country. I am stunned with drowsiness. The Sun's rays have extinguished the scintillant peril in the skies. But the order has gone forth to leave the City, to camp upon the hills, the City of Scandor is doomed, and the area of destruction it embraces is the diametral measure of the----"

I heard no more. Overcome with fatigue, exposure and increasing pulmonary weakness, of which I had had painful premonitions, I fainted at the table, and fell to the floor of the damp and inclement room.

My a.s.sistants aver that the transmission ceased almost the next moment upon my collapse, and the unfinished sentence of my father's message can be readily understood as implying that the foreign body, or Swarm, which was destined to strike Mars, had been determined as having about the amplitude of the City of Scandor.

Days lengthened into weeks, weeks to months, but though unflinchingly watched by night and day, no further message was received. I had become weaker, pale and lifeless. The terrible malady made its inroads upon a frame unable to meet its savage or insidious attacks. This weakness was aggravated by the excitement produced by the singular experience I had pa.s.sed through. My nerves had undergone a strain quite unusual, and the interior sense of elation, reacting its fits of extreme mental despondency dislocated my system, and accelerated the gliding virus of disease inundating the capillaries of circulation and breaking down the tissues with fever and consumption.