The world below
For they made the music in their minds, or recited it, if it had been
composed earlier, and its notes, that rose and fell, were the very
thoughts that inspired it. It was now a marching chant, and a war-song
of a kind, as I heard it,--
“We have offered our lives on the palm of one hand,
(Is it Wrong that hath willed? Is it God Who hath planned?)
To be taken and lost at our Leaders’ command.
We who are but God’s thought----”
So far I followed it, and then the unison broke, for they perceived me,
and doubted.
Nothing more of their thoughts could I learn till they had reached the
spot where I sat, and were filing past it. I saw that they were in all
respects similar to the one with whom I had been first acquainted,
except that the fur of each was trimmed or patterned in a distinctive
manner, until, when the first score had passed, there came a group of
five who had no such marks upon them, but were in that, and in all other
respects, like the one I first met. Of these, one detached herself from
the group and came toward me, while the others passed onward.
I had learnt enough of their conversing to make my mind at once blank
and receptive to receive her question. I say “her,” not because these
creatures showed any divergencies of form to indicate a bi-sexual
species, but because the slim bodies gave me an impression of
femininity, which makes “it” an inadequate pronoun. She asked,--“You
bring a message? We have received it already, but I should like to hear
it from you.” I replied, “It is this, ‘_I could do nothing. She is in
the fifth killing-pen on the left. There is no watch on the higher
side, and it can be climbed with little peril. The weapons are not
guarded, but the pens are. Bring all you can, except those who pass the
fish forward. You must leave my body till the return, for the fault was
mine._’”
She replied, her mind an open curiosity concerning me as she did so,
“You have remembered well. And she tells me that you saved her body, for
which we are grateful.”
I answered, “I thought I left her dead in the tunnel. Has she come here
before me?”
“We hope her body may still be there. It is dead now, but it should not
be damaged beyond remedy.”
My mind wondered vaguely, and her own answered. “You are a strange
animal, and as ignorant as you are dirty. There are two coming which
will bring you food, and which you must first eat, and then continue
with us, for we could not leave you in safety, and your body, apart from
its deficiencies and that its clumsy coverings are damaged, appears to
be useless until food has restored it.”
Her thought was without hostility; it was kind in tone, however
offensive in substance. She was clearly startled on realising the mental
protest with which I received it. She went on, “You have been useful,
and what we can do for you we will. But if this wild inevitable folly
does not destroy us, I suppose that we must give you up to the Dwellers,
for you seem to me as one that comes from the other lands, whom we are
unable to harbour.”
I have tried to translate the thoughts she gave me into English words,
but it is not easy, and the difficulty is particularly great where
people or places are mentioned. For in the language of thought it is
evident that proper names can have no place. The clumsy device of names
is a necessity of articulate speech, which Adam first discovered when he
attempted language. Consequently, when I write of the “Dwellers” I use
the best word I can apply to the idea she gave me, which was that of a
dominant race, by whom the earth--or that part of it--was held as men
hold civilised lands to-day, and without whose consent no other creature
can remain in security. There was a subtle implication of a shadow
beyond, against which they were leagued in common, but it was too
formless for me to understand it....
Had dogs continued, I wondered, through five hundred millenniums?
The two creatures which trotted at the rear of the column, and which now
paused at her signal, were shaggy, web-footed, with the flapped gills
with which I was already familiar, obviously amphibious, with seals’
eyes, and of the bulk of a walrus. Why should I think of dogs? But the
identity of a dog is not the result of a physical pattern, or how should
we call a Great Dane by the same name as a Skye Terrier?
Not for the first time or the last, I wondered less at the differences
of this strange world than at its similarities to the one behind me.
Round the neck of each of these creatures hung a bag containing food,
intended (as I learnt later) for their own eating. Of this she directed
me to take some for my own use from the nearer one, and when I
hesitated, with mingled fear and repulsion, the sea-dog thrust out an
unexpected length of narrow tongue, that curled down, snake-like, into
the bag, and drew out an object the size of a swan’s egg, but covered
with a tough flexible skin of mottled grey, and held it toward me.
At this my guide threw me a thought of sharp impatience, and enjoined me
to eat it quickly.
I took it then, and broke the skin, and found it contained a semi-liquid
substance, of a slate-grey colour, which I tasted doubtfully, and then
ate with eagerness, for it was sweet and of a delightful taste, and had
a quality which appeased both thirst and hunger.
CHAPTER XI
THE PROBLEM
I ate quickly, for the impatience of my companion’s mind was affecting
me like a physical pressure, and we then set off rapidly to overtake the
troop, which had now disappeared in the tunnel, my energy being
stimulated to the swift exertion, either by the force of my companion’s
will, or by the strange food which I had taken.
As we ran, our minds met and contended, making little progress at first,
for her curiosity was keen, and was of a kind which, being without
anxiety, and regarding me only as a strange animal which had lost its
way, was not easily turned, while I was acutely conscious that I had
here a friendly intelligence which, if I could use the time to
advantage, might give me information of vital importance, to enable me
to move with safety through the unfamiliar ways to which I had committed
myself.
Consequently we each strove for some moments to obtain information
rather than provide it, but in the end she gave way, thinking she would
gain more by humouring me, and that my questions could hardly fail to
disclose much of my own identity.
I then asked her how it was that the troop, the rear of which we had now
gained, was able to traverse the tunnel in safety. I recognised that the
pace at which they moved must give some advantage, but I should have
supposed that, though the first might pass, the roused worms would
strike at those that followed. She replied that the combined will-power
of the troop held them down very easily, on which I mentioned my own
experience, and admitted that I had made no effort to use my will-power
against them. She replied that this was natural in such an animal as I,
and that I had possibly allowed anger, or even fear, to enter my mind,
so descending to their own level, and rendering it easier for them to
attack me.
I could not deny this, but asked why she regarded me so contemptuously.
She replied that, as I was a strange creature to her, she could only
judge me by the degree of intelligence which I exhibited, but that a
species of any eminence could hardly be content to exist in bodies so
ugly, so awkward, and so badly made. She added that many of the lowest
creatures of the ocean-floor possessed bodies which were complete and
sufficient without extraneous coverings.
I replied that the human body was not necessarily insufficient, but that
clothing might be worn from a sense of shame, or as an ornament only.
She said that she understood the sense of shame, which she should feel
very strongly herself if she were burdened with such a body, but if I
regarded my clothes as ornamental, it was a point on which we must
differ; and, in that case, the wearing of clothes confessed me to be an
inferior, even among my own kind, as a Leader naturally would not enter
into such a competition.
I was puzzled by this reply, and she instanced the fact that she, and
other Leaders of her kind, did not pattern their fur, which would bring
them into unseemly competition with those below them--a competition
which would lead to envy if they succeeded, or ridicule if they failed
to outdo their rivals.
I then asked a number of questions intended to guide me as to the
conditions of the world I had entered, and it will be most convenient to
give the facts,--as far as I was then able to understand them,--in the
form of a direct statement rather than in that of the conversation which
gained them.
I learnt that the country in which I found myself was an island
continent, of about the size of Australia, but in the northern
hemisphere, as the stars had told me. It was controlled by the Dwellers,
who had lived below its surface for a long period of time, of the
duration of which I could form no idea, nor could I obtain any
information as to the depth or extent of their subterranean excavations,
for the sufficient reason that no Amphibian had ever penetrated them.
The island continent was surrounded on every side by a great ocean,
beyond which was a world containing such inhabitants that the Dwellers
had first gone underground to escape them, and then, at a later period,
planted around the whole extent of the coast a girdle of strange
growths, above which the air had no sustaining power, and which had
protected it so effectively that for an enormous period of time they had
been left in undisputed isolation.
In some remote antiquity they had entered into a treaty with the
Amphibians by which it was agreed that they should be left in possession
of the numerous rocky islets which surrounded a large part of the coast,
on three conditions;--they were to keep certain subterranean reservoirs
filled with fresh fish continually; they were to hold no intercourse
with the farther world; and they were to make no attempt to penetrate
inland, either above or below the surface.
Until recently, these conditions had been observed with exactness. They
had, beneath the ocean, an undisputed dominion of enormous area; they
did not even cross to the farther sides of the fish-tanks they filled,
from which the Dwellers netted the shoals of fish which they had herded
into them; they made no attempt to penetrate the protective belt which
surrounded the surface area; and they entirely avoided the other
continents of which the land surface of the earth consisted.
For the whole period since this treaty was made--I could only marvel at
their longevity--they had been ruled by a Council of Seven, whose
headquarters were beneath the black rocks which I had observed to
seaward.
The Council decided all matters affecting the welfare of the community
by thinking upon them until they arrived at unanimity, and these
decisions were always accepted without dissent.
But there was one of the seven who had not been present when the treaty
was made. She had been long absent, and was supposed to have been dead,
but she had subsequently returned from the exploration of the caves of a
range of submarine mountains at the farther end of the earth, in which
she had met with such adventures as had detained her for a long period.
Not having been a party to the treaty, she had not felt herself bound in
honour, as had the other six, to observe it. Nor, being of the seven,
did she feel controlled by their authority, as did the rest of the
community. She was of a disposition which loved the adventures of
strange ways, and, from the first, had wished to explore the interior of