Limanora the island of progress
hinder extending its range of vision beyond the immediate horizon, and
taking in at a glance the course of the future as it did the page of
history? And as it reached higher and higher points of view, it could
paint eternity as it now pictured the past. There was no limit to its
previsional powers, as there had been none to its penetration into the
prehistoric and primeval darkness. Prescience should be as organised
and exact as any science. In fact all their sciences had become
presciential, those that were merely retrospective or synchronous
having gradually fallen out of notice. And the families that had been
devoted to them were one by one absorbed into other services. No study
was counted of much value that had not one eye on the future. Their
whole intellectual system was thus becoming futuritive, and all the
faculties looked up to and centred in the greatest and most predictive
of them all--the imagination.
They had already been able in the valley of memories to focus the
past into the view of a few moments or days or months. The time
stretching behind us into the darkness was underneath one glance of the
intellectual eye. Only greater certainty in their imaginative methods
was needed for the eternity that stretches in front of us to flash
before the soul in a single picture. Only develop the prophet-faculty
as rapidly in the next few generations as it had been developed in
the past few, and we might move at will from age to age of the future,
as we now move from age to age of the past, living at any moment in
any period we pleased, or in a thousand periods at once. From past
to future would be as easy a leap as from hell to heaven for this
great time-and-space-focussing faculty. Eternity would be as focal
to imagination as infinity. It was an eye towards which radiated all
time and all space. Post-historic pictures would be as vivid to it as
prehistoric. Even now interest was fast leaking from mere recorded
history before the romance of eternity past and future. What was the
history of the race upon earth, compared with the periscope of the
cosmos? Then would their posterity be able to stand on a watch-tower
in the heights of heaven, and view the whole arena of existence as it
stretched through time and space. There is no faculty so close to the
divine as imagination.
I felt that this publication was like all their work, singularly
self-regardless. It clearly recognised that the realisation of its
proposed ideal would mean the doom of its art. Pioneering, all of
theirs which we in the West would call literature, would be superseded.
Loomiefa would then become an institution of the past, less and less
interesting as but a rapidly receding item of history. Self-effacement
for the sake of progress was the dominant note of Limanoran
civilisation. And in this book it seemed to me to rise to its highest
pitch; for it held before the race a goal, which, when attained, would
render literature and its publication unnecessary to its advance.
CHAPTER VIII
ANOTHER THREAT
WHEN the island was absorbed in the productions of this new literary
or pioneering era, its attention was suddenly called to its immediate
surroundings. Out of eternity they were jerked into the passing moment
to defend their own little plot of earth. Mere existence was endangered
if they did not at once withdraw their powers from their march through
the future. It had been the result of their humane and lenient policy
towards their exiles that every few generations rebellion and menace
rose in the archipelago against their mysterious isolation. Fear of the
isle of demons awed the imaginations of the other islands for a century
or two, and then foolhardy prosperity, or conquest, demanded a new
lesson.
Half a century had not passed since the romance of Choktroo’s rise
and fall; and unaided and unstimulated, the other inhabitants of the
archipelago would have grovelled in helpless fear and hate of the
central isle. The discipline applied in the repulsion of Choktroo’s
fleet would have sufficed for several centuries, but for a new power
which had insinuated itself within the circle of mist.
One of the days when the book of Emigration was holding the stage of
Loomiefa, the spectators were startled by realistic transference of
their drama to the sky above them. Just as the opalescent faleenas
were about to land on the new star, every eye was suddenly drawn
away from the stage to the blue spreading above the valley. Across
it was passing a strange airship of huge proportions and ungainly
structure. I recognised it as a development of the balloon, with which
I had been familiar in my European experience. There was the immense
inflated globe, or rather pear, with the car hung underneath; but
there was something new in the motions of this balloon. It seemed to
be dirigible, for it tacked this way and that across the direction of
the wind. And still more strange, the car was filled with implements of
war; I could see their great muzzles pointed over the sides.
The Limanorans were startled by this anticipation of their science, but
only for a moment; and as soon as the apparition sailed out of sight,
they bent their senses as eagerly on the spectacle before them. They
knew that their sentries were at their watch-posts on Lilaroma, and
nothing hostile to the interests of the civilisation could occur in air
or sea or upon earth without stirring their attention, and so placing
the whole island on the alert. They waited till the publication of the
book was finished and then streamed off to their various businesses
and pursuits. As we flew across the upper slopes of the mountain
we found out that the aërial stranger had settled upon one of the
lonelier heights of the island of Broolyi. No action was taken by the
Limanorans against the singular invader of the archipelago, except
to set a special watchman who should observe his movements through
the idrovamolan, and should report to the elders anything out of the
common that might occur.
The stranger had evidently been disabled away to the east of the circle
of fog; his steering-gear had ceased to act, and before a tornado he
was hurried away from the great continent over which he had hovered.
The impetus bore him helpless above and across the ring of mist, and
within its calmer sphere the steering-gear was again adjusted. It was
then that the watchers on Lilaroma saw his purpose to make for their
island, and they sent through the lilaran a blast which would carry him
away from their shores, not rude enough to harm him, yet sufficiently
strong to defeat his intention. Feeling himself borne again farther
away from his home he tacked for the nearest peak that he thought he
could reach. This was evidently Klimarol. But the blast of the lilaran
was too much for him; and to save himself from drifting still farther
west he grappled one of the heights of Broolyi as he passed over it,
and settled there.
It became one of the amusements of the younger Limanorans to observe
the behaviour and the fate of the newcomer in the isle of peace. The
crew of the airship was numerous; they were taken prisoners not long
after they had descended from their car, and their captain was hurried
off to the court of the new ruler. Before long the balloon was brought
to the capital and carefully guarded; and, anchored firmly to the
earth, it made ascents with the royal engineers under the direction of
the balloonist. His every movement was watched lest he should release
the captive by cutting the rope that bound it, and sail off with the
officers of his Broolyian majesty. But as the months and years passed
on, the newcomer with his strange new ship came to be trusted by the
king and his advisers. He saw an arena for his ambitions and talents,
and bent his whole energies to his new purpose.
We could see him from day to day and week to week add to the aërial
fleet, which he at once began to build in imitation of the balloon
he had brought with him. His original subordinates and companions
were at first his only assistants, but the Broolyian engineers and
mechanicians afterwards joined in the work in great numbers, and became
as deft at it as the strangers. Every new balloon that was made was
tested in the air. At first there were accidents, which for a time
prejudiced the court and the people against the aërial monsters. But by
carefully selecting his men from the army the director was able at last
to furnish every airship that he made with a complete and efficient
crew, able under the leadership of one of his companions to manipulate
the vehicle and every implement on board of it. It even became the
favourite pastime of the court to make voyages across the island in
these swift frigates of the sky.
Ultimately the king so thoroughly trusted the master of this new style
of transportation that he abandoned himself to his guidance and allowed
him free use of all the resources of the island. He came to see the
marvellous possibilities that lay in warfare carried on by such a navy.
Though the Broolyians had, after Choktroo’s deportation, lost one by
one all the conquests that that audacious warrior had made, and had at
last been confined again to the limits of their island, they never gave
up their ambitious dreams. And the monarch who could fulfil them would
be certain to fix his empire in their hearts. The new king looked round
for some means to gratify this passion for conquest. But their old
methods were now comparatively useless; for the other large islands,
warned by their past experience, built fleets as large and formidable
as the Broolyian, and the smaller groups confederated for the purposes
of defence. It was vain then to think of re-mastering the archipelago
in any attempt by sea.
With extreme delight then did the monarch watch a demonstration of the
warlike possibilities of the new air craft. The director had some old
hulks moored out at sea in sight of the king and his court. Then he
entered one of his new balloons, well provided with guns and explosives
and well-manned, and bade the crew let go. They sailed straight out
till they rose high over the remains of the antiquated navy. As they
approached their prey, several guns belched out their fires from the
car, and their shot struck and sank three of the ancient ships. But
two tough old hulls resisted all their attempts. So the balloon rose
straight over them, but much higher in the air. Out of the car was
seen to fall two packages, which made for the decks of the old tempest
resisters. In the twinkling of an eye, before we could realise that the
packets had reached their destinations, there was a thunderous roar,
and the air was filled with jets of water and with the flying fragments
of the shattered hulks. When the commotion settled, nothing but
floating planks and spars and shreds of the vanished ships was to be
seen on the surface of the water. And away out of reach of the fierce
convulsion rode the airship majestic and unharmed in the blue.
The monarch need no further demonstration. He gave up to the master of
the new power the use of his whole army and navy. Before many months
were over a vast aërial fleet was equipped and manned ready for the
first emergency, and this emergency arose at once. The sullen jealousy
which ever smoulders and rankles between two powerful and neighbouring
empires took substance and outward shape between Aleofane and Broolyi.
The old enemy knew nothing of the new instruments of war which had
been forged, and prepared with cheer and good hope for the struggle.
Her fleet was in excellent order, well equipped and manned, but within
a few weeks it had completely vanished before the wrecking terror of