Chapter XII: Needful Preparations

As they had all suspected, a change soon came over the situation; they had a task set them to do, and this was to learn the language of the country.

Every day both men and women came to their prison to give them instructions, which they carried on by signs, by pictures, by every conceivable method. They submitted with the best grace they could, although they could not tell to what this education process was destined to lead, whether to life or to death. Carmichael was at a disadvantage, for he had never developed an aptitude for learning languages, and it was said that he had got through his “Little Go” at Cambridge with considerable difficulty, as his laurels were gained in another field. The engineer was a man of many tongues, as he had travelled much, both in Mexico and South America. Abercromby always spoke of himself as a hopeless dunce, but it was often noticed that he found the way to learn whatever he really wished to learn. As to Clarence Radcliffe, he threw his whole soul into the work--a process which on this occasion stood him in good stead, as, in ordinary cases, languages were not his strong point.

The mystery of the English writing was not solved. Radcliffe persisted in thinking that the two people who had visited them on the hillside were the authors of it. There was some plausibility in this, for they may have meant it as a return for the trouble he had taken with them over the diagrams and the solar-system map. But plausible as the suggested motive might be, it did not explain how they could have carried it out.

When a little progress had been made Carmichael one day showed the papers to some who had come to teach them. He was surprised to find that they evinced little or no curiosity or astonishment. The reason, however, soon appeared. They thought that the prisoners had written the words for themselves, and it was the presence of their own words, not of the English words, that they specially noted. When the Professor understood this, Carysfort earnestly advised him to let the matter drop, for in their helpless position indiscreet disclosures or even questions might get them all into trouble. They would soon find out for themselves what powers the wise men of the planet really had. “Besides,” he said, “I am convinced by a minute study of the letters that they were never written by one to whom our language was familiar; their shape is quite stilted and foreign.”

Carmichael was satisfied now that they had not been forestalled by some traveller from earth.

They early made discovery of the name by which Venus was known to its own people. Venusian was not a pleasing term, and did not sound so well as Atalantan. The planet was called Atalanta, which meant “the flowery land.” As there was but one nation, one empire, dwelling upon it, Atalanta was the name given to both the country and its metropolis. The beautiful vale in which the city stood with the great lake from whose shores its steep ascents took their rise was Meloria; the broad spreading high hills bounding the vale to the north were the Keraunian Mountains, so called from an ancient king of Atalanta who had saved the life of the child of one of the noblest of his subjects, while climbing their heights, at the expense of his own.

Carmichael was told that his supposition of a high mountain near the southern pole was correct. It was a peaked mountain called Aptaura, and was twenty miles above the sea-level, the highest point on the planet.

The earth was known to the Atalantans as Karamandra, “Queen of the cold night”; Mercury, which was the only planet visible from the lighted hemisphere, was called Araminta, the bright flashing; while the sun was Asti, the furnace, though he had other titles connected with the Atalantan religion.

Carmichael saw that it was useless to seek any information as to what was going to happen to them, nor would his teachers tell much about their politics or customs. The travellers even suspected that any questions they put were noted down. Radcliffe got on the best, as he only made enquiries about their beliefs, and on this point they were willing, as far as he was concerned, to be a little more communicative, though it is to be feared that he was not greatly encouraged by what they told him.

On the other hand, the Atalantans put very few questions themselves and these only of a harmless sort. It was evident that they had no intention of treachery, but how much of what the travellers said was reported elsewhere, the latter could not be equally certain.

One evening the party were seated in their parlour, when Abercromby asked the Professor to tell them what he had been able to glean as to Atalantan matters.

“Well,” replied Carmichael, “my supply of talk is but scanty, but it may while away the time to piece it together. I have ascertained that there exists no variety of race upon the planet; that these people have been settled here for a couple of thousand years at least; that they are descended from a pair, pretty much after the Bible account of Adam and Eve, only much more recent in time; that they were originally patriarchal in government, but that gradually the kingly power grew and grew until it became what it is now, a sort of benevolent autocracy rather resembling that of the ancient Incas of Peru. The growth of the race has been exceedingly slow compared with that of earthly races, but I have an opinion that this is largely due to the deliberate will of the people themselves, who know that they have but a small available territory for the comfortable support of life in a civilised form. Towns and cities do not exist, nor distinct villages. There is but the giant capital and scattered and independent country houses. There is an extension of the land southwards forming a peninsula called Anactorium; the land then ends near the south pole with the giant mountain Aptaura, on which is situated an observatory for the study of the heavenly bodies, our earth included.

“Off the south-western coast is a large island called Melandria inhabited by a somewhat more hardy population, of which island the princess Melanitis is said to be very fond.

“Now, Carysfort, you take up the cudgels, and tell us what your supply of knowledge is.”

“Not very much,” muttered the engineer. “These folk have found out how to steer airships about two hundred years ago, and it seems they use them for all purposes of travel. This is why, except in Melandria, there are few roads and fewer vehicles. Before the airship came in they used palanquins and litter-travelling for the aristocracy, while the rest of the people walked. The aristocracy consist of those only who have done deeds of kindness or valour, such as the Royal House may think worthy of wearing the crimson sash, the tiara, and the coronet; their children inherit their honours till they do anything disgraceful and then the title lapses.

“Sir Thomas More and Gulliver ought to have lived in this land before writing their terrestrial books.”

“How are the people fed?” asked Radcliffe.

“Everybody grows his own produce and makes his own furniture and clothes,” said Carysfort. “All the central and northern lands are the free property of the state. Anybody can take what he wants if he has the energy to go there. If he has not, then he must have a poorer house and wear shabbier clothes.”

“How do they elect the king?”

“The crown descends from sire to son, or from sire to daughter, for one hundred years, then the nobility meet in conclave and elect the worthiest man or woman of their number. If they cannot agree, the reigning sovereign may hold the throne till death; but this has only happened twice.”

“Now, Abercromby, tell us your discoveries,” said Carmichael.

“The king has two daughters, Melanitis and Mexitli,” he answered; “the former will be queen on her father’s death, and he is a very old man.

“I am afraid after all, Professor, you are much to be commiserated that you did not go to Mars. It is a feminine world, Professor, in the worst of all senses, that men appear to be in a position of distinct inferiority. They do all the work, and what the others do I have not clearly learned at present, but when I know I will tell you. So far as I can find out, their rule is decently benevolent, but I shudder to think of the exceptions. I suppose it will all figure out right; if it doesn’t we shan’t be here to see.”

“I believe you are humbugging,” laughed Carmichael.

“I will tell you a pathetic story,” continued Abercromby. “I happened to ask one of the most recent damsels who came here to complete my studies if the princesses were good-looking. She got in such a rage that I asked her what the dickens she meant by it. As she failed to understand me, my words soothed her, and then with the airs of all the queens from Semiramis to Victoria, she demanded by what right a Karamandran barbarian from outer space presumed to ask such a thing respecting the two fairy pillars upon which Atalanta would one day rest. She told me I was only fit to herd with mangas, and I told her she was enough to make a cat laugh like Charlie’s Aunt, but I spoke in English, of course.”

“What is a manga?” asked Radcliffe.

“I fear it is one of those dear monkeys that made me howl and wake the Professor, but I am not sure.

“I think we will agree not to ask Radcliffe what he has found out, for we are hardly in a fit mood for serious talk, and I don’t think he wants to tell us,” continued Abercromby.

“No, not to-night,” said Radcliffe. “I told Frank that I was afraid they worshipped the sun, and he consoled me by saying they would not think of worshipping the moon, because Venus had not got one.”

As Radcliffe himself laughed the whole party saw no harm in doing the same.

Three days later a most remarkable event occurred. This was nothing less than the arrival of Jackson, with his hands fettered, it is true, but the guards told them they might release him at once.

“Well, Tom, old friend and comrade, I am glad to see you,” said Carmichael warmly.

“More glad than I am to see myself,” answered Jackson. “I don’t know how I can bear to tell you all that has happened.”

“It was not your fault,” said his master kindly. “Let us hear the worst at once--the machine has been taken away or destroyed.”

“Not so bad as all that, sir; it is put under lock and key and strongly guarded. When I saw you made prisoner I thought I would set the engines going, soar up, and play a game in the sky which would frighten them, but I never got the chance; they swarmed in, knocked me down, after I had sent some of them down, bound me hands and feet, and fastened me to one of the couches in the dining-room. Then they began poking their blessed noses into every nook and corner, and there I was swearing and cussing and not able to do nothing to stop them.

“Presently they takes me and opens my mouth and puts something in that sends me straight off asleep for the next twenty hours. When I wakes up some low-looking fellows were standing over me and feeling me about, and I put out my tongue in case it was a doctor. Well, they brought me food and drink, and I was that mad hungry and thirsty I cleared the plate and mug, I can tell you, and then off I went to sleep again, and this was pretty much how I was treated till this morning, when they took me out of the machine and brought me to you. They had moved the machine with me in it while I was unconscious.”

“Did they teach you to speak their language?” asked the Professor.

“Not they, sir. They didn’t think me up to it, I suppose.”

“Well, they have taken no end of pains to teach us,” said Abercromby, and he told Jackson the extraordinary incident of the English words.

“I believe I can make that out, sir,” said Jackson.

The Professor looked amazed, but he only said, “If you can, Tom, you will take quite a load off my brains.”

“It was one of their monkey tricks they played on me, depend on it, sir. When I got my senses back, I saw one of the rascals holding sheets of our manuscript paper in his hand. I believe he just went and mesmerised me, and got me to say and do all he wanted. Of course, if they were after teaching you their lingo, they would start much the quicker by helping you to put their work into our letters, and I am sure that was how they did it; they made me say and write the English alphabet when they had got me like wax in their hands and I had no power to fight them. But if I did you a good turn, sir, I’ll forgive them.”

“Now we have got the key at last,” says Carysfort. “We need not trouble any more about it.”

The next morning Cleito, the commandant of the palace guard, entered their parlour and said to them: “Four days from now, strangers from Karamandra, and you will stand before the Royal House in the Hall of Audience and of Perfect Justice, and you will reply to the questions put to you by the king and by the princesses his daughters, and as your answers shall be good or evil in their sight, so shall your destiny be.”

“It has come at last,” said Radcliffe.