Limanora the island of progress
ceremonial. And I was not long in doubt as to the occasion. For with
music that rose and fell in marvellous rhythm like the waves of the
sea there came across the sky a splendid flight-car, more brilliant
in opalescent glow, more majestic in architecture, than anything I
had ever seen. Its wings flashed fire through the air and seemed to
weave the lightnings of heaven into a diaphanous web. It was a car of
victory; for around it bands of flying youth raised jubilant harmony,
and over its rear rose a canopy crowned with fire. As it floated nearer
I could see beneath this a figure resting upon an elevated couch.
The music grew more loudly triumphant as it hovered downwards to the
central plateau of the hill of farewells. And then I knew that this
was Amiralno on the couch; and all the people, except the few who were
needed for the essential services of the island, had assembled to bid
him farewell, as he sped in front of them into the land of shadows
whither no eye could penetrate.
I had without knowing it landed close to Thyriel, so absorbed had I
been in the wondrous spectacle. She had been busy with the chorus of
acclaim, her thoughts bent on this rare scene of farewell; and she had
not noticed my approach. Then a sudden silence, as Amiralno stepped
from the faleena, startled the great concourse out of their entranced
attitude; their thoughts were set free as by the touch of a magic wand.
It was at this that Thyriel became conscious of my presence. I knew in
a moment that she had recognised the criticism in my mind. Yet she did
not answer or explain the anomaly. She remained perfectly still.
A burst of jubilant music broke my reverie, as the sudden silence had
broken it before. It led me back to the symphony of the spheres to
which I had been accustomed to listen with rapt attention. I could
recognise the harmonious strain that meant the creation of a world.
I could almost see the whirling orb of fire, as it flew off from the
parent sun, and swept into its glowing round through heaven. Nothing
I had ever heard could match the rapturous melody which expressed the
approach of life to the surface of the new star. Quicker and quicker
grew the pace, and higher the pitch, as the living creation developed
and spread over the world. Then came a wild dithyramb, as man broke
from his bestial surroundings, and mastered his fellow-beasts by
cunning, and drew fire from heaven for his purposes. A nobler strain
followed, rhythmically measuring the steps by which he rose out of
himself and climbed the steep of heaven. Silver-toned harmonies told of
his masterpieces of art. Loud diapasons spoke out his marching armies
and fierce battles. Soft involved fugues and dulcet chants expressed
the struggles and conquests of thought.
I stood absorbed in the interpretation of this ravishing music, and
failed to observe the progress of events upon the lofty plateau.
Amiralno had taken up an erect position on what might have been called
an altar, had the scene been a religious one. His face was towards
heaven. He held his right hand as if waving back those whom he forbade
to follow him; for close to him stood the partner of his earthly
life, her face set as if she would depart. Around stood his lifelong
comrades and counsellors, yet at a lower level, so that every act of
the departing could be seen by the concourse. Near him were erected two
columns, on the higher of which and above his head I could distinguish
a psychometer, on the lower a biometer. Behind him had been built
into the rock an elaborate piece of machinery, which I recognised
as a manana or petrifier. Often had I seen it transfix almost in a
moment a beautiful plant, substituting irelium for its living tissues,
and making every leaf and flower of it translucent crystal. By means
of electric currents, it sent streams of the atomic constituents of
irelium along the sap-channels from rootlet to leaf-tip; it used the
living powers of the plant to turn it as it died into undecaying metal.
For hundreds of years the flower would live and be a thing of beauty,
even if no care was further spent on it; and, if cared for, it would
resist the finger of decay for thousands and thousands of years.
At last I was to see the transfiguration of a Limanoran. I had often
almost doubted the origin of those lifelike statues that stood in
Fialume, and death was so rare a thing among this long-lived people
that during my many years amongst them I had never had the opportunity
of satisfying the doubt. Curiosity overshadowed my other feelings and
made me forget the grief which would keep creeping into my heart at
this farewell scene in spite of the jubilant music. I strained every
nerve and sense to catch the features of the strange event. Thyriel, I
felt, was as eager as I to see all that would occur, and I could see
that the younger half of the concourse had their attention closely
riveted upon the scene.
The observer of the biometer raised his eyes to the indicator, which
had now begun to move in rapid oscillations. Amiralno lifted the
forefinger of his left hand as if giving a signal. He looked back a
moment with longing in his eyes at his life-partner. From the manana
there sprang out an upright groove towards the dying man, and in this
he was caught, as his vitality rose to its greatest effort before the
final collapse. The indicator of the sidralan shot upwards with great
violence, and then fell still. Almost at the same moment the guardian
who stood on the loftier column beside the psychometer raised himself
in agitation. The indicator had begun the same violent oscillations as
that of the biometer. There could be little doubt that the individual
energy or soul of the vanished Amiralno had passed near it in his
flight upwards.
Through the brief and impressive scene the note of creation rang in the
music that filled the air, and never that of dissolution. Then burst
forth the chorus of freedom, which was the national song, if anything
might be so called. It was the liberation of the energy of their friend
and comrade that they united to celebrate, his entrance on a new career
untrammelled by lower forms of inert energy. The music rose as if on
wings, higher, higher, ever more exhilarant. There were in it none of
the undertones, or deeper notes, or mystic subtleties that marked so
many of their spheral harmonies. It was a sound of pure joy, ethereal,
supernal, unalloyed by any terrene longings. Who could think of grief
or the bitterness of farewells, as long as it rang through the sky?
Courage, confidence to climb upwards was the only emotion that could
live with joy in its presence.
Suddenly the music broke away into a tempest of cosmic melody. Now
wailed forth the wild song of dissolution of worlds, again the clashing
of conflicting systems, followed by the surge of new life in orbs that
were to whirl through space and elevate the existence upon them for
thousands of thousands of ages. It was the music of mingled creation
and disintegration, of development and decay which we heard once more.
Our thoughts were recalled from the heights of heaven, whither the lost
personality of our guide and friend had fled. We were absorbed again
in the struggle of a mixed existence; we felt again the agonies of
the higher active energies bound to lower and merely latent energies.
My eyes came down to the scene of the last farewell. There stood the
almost living statue of our vanished brother, erect, eager as for
flight, as at the moment when his energy had gone forth. But now it had
the clear metallic translucence of the thousands I had seen in Fialume.
The transfiguration was complete.
But there was more on the plateau than the figure of what had been.
Beside it with rapt, pleading gaze on her face stood yet unmoved the
life-comrade of the vanished. The manana was again in position, the
observers again stood by the biometer and the psychometer. Another
scene of departure and transfiguration was to be enacted. The whole
consciousness of the community had granted without words the petition
of Amiralno’s spouse. Nothing seemed to be so fitting as that the two
should leave their trammelled life together, and within the space of a
few hundred beatings of the pulse partner had followed partner. The two
lives, joined for so many centuries, had come to a close together. Out
into infinite space had fled the two intertwined energies, only a few
heartbeats apart. Perhaps together they would find their new sphere,
their new platform for still higher flight through the diviner stages
of existence.
The Limanorans, when they had reached what they considered the limits
of their usefulness in corporeal life, gained an instinctive knowledge
of the moment when death was certain to come, or perhaps it was an
instinctive power of dying. It is a common thing to see amongst savage
or half-civilised tribes a man or woman in full health deliberately
lie down, turn the face away from friends and light, and prepare to
die. They seem to know when their destiny is coming upon them, and
nothing will persuade them to take measures for driving it off. Strong
though the currents of life may be flowing in the veins at the moment,
it is not long before they have completely ebbed, and left the body a
pulseless mass of inert matter. It was this instinct, whether prophetic
or suicidal, that the aged amongst this people seemed to resume when
they had weighed the vital powers in their systems against the duties
that new ages with their progress would bring, and found them wanting.
Destiny seemed to speak out to them, when they saw the transference of
the minus to the wrong side. Their minds were made up and it needed but
a few days or hours to set the imprisoned energy free. In these later
and more scientific ages there was some delay, and not uncommonly a
postponement of the departure. A careful examination of the system by
means of their new scientific instruments revealed some radical mistake
in the judgment of the elder as to himself, or the demands of a new age
of discovery made the need of more brains and hands imperative. The
result was the same in both cases; the reason was persuaded to give up
its resolve; life flowed on in the veins with even power again; all
the old duties were resumed; and the day of farewells was put off till
a more convenient season. But once they were convinced that they were
retarding progress instead of accelerating it, the end, they felt, was
within measurable distance; they straightway relinquished their grasp
of life; they withdrew purpose and power of will from all their vital
functions; and the moment of the final collapse was practically within
their own choice, as soon as they had the consciousness of the whole
community with them.
Here stood two solid memorials to the working of this prescient or
devitalising power. The beauty of expression on the two faces was very
striking. The attitudes were as natural and noble as life itself, that
of Amiralno bidding his partner farewell, hers full of loving petition
to follow. That the whole people approved was clear in the heartiness
with which they broke into the song of liberation. Everyone was glad
that the energies of these two, who had done their full duty by the
race, were free to enter other spheres, and follow other than the
terrene methods of advance. Reverently, but still with great rejoicing,
the family of the departed placed the two lifelike statues in the
car of victory, and guided it in triumphal flight to the valley of
memories. Then the people as reverently and joyously bent their way to
the duties they had left.
I stood in a day-dream of the strange but noble ways of life that this
people followed, and suddenly awakened to find myself alone on the hill