One of the Professors of the University received us as his guests,
assigning to us, as is usual when a lady is of the party, rooms
looking on the peristyle, but whose windows remained closed. Enva, of
course, spent her time chiefly with the ladies of the family. When
alone with me she talked freely, though needing some encouragement to
express her own ideas, or report what she had heard; but she had no
intention of concealment, perhaps no notion that I was interested in
her accounts of the prevalent feeling respecting the heretics of whom
she heard much, except of course that Eveena's father was among them.
Through her I learned that much pains had been taken to intensify and
excite into active hostility the dislike and distrust with which they
had always been regarded by the public at large, and especially by the
scientific guilds, whose members control all educational
establishments. That some attempt against them was meditated appeared
to be generally reported. Its nature and the movers in the matter were
not known, so far as I could gather, even to men so influential as the
chief Professors of the University. It was not merely that the women
had heard nothing on this point, but that their lords had dropped
expressions of surprise at the strictness with which the secret was
kept.
As their parents pay, when first the children are admitted to the
public Nurseries, the price of an average education, this special
instruction is given in the first instance at the cost of the State to
those who, on account of their taste and talent, are selected by the
teachers of the Colleges. But before they leave the University a bond
is taken for the amount of this outlay, which has to be repaid within
three years. It is fair to say that the tax is trivial in comparison
with the ordinary gains of their professions; the more so that no such
preference as, in our world, is almost universally given to a
reputation which can only be acquired by age, excludes the youth of
Mars from full and profitable employment.
The youths were delighted to receive a lecture on the forms of
Terrestrial government, and the outlines of their history; a topic I
selected because they were already acquainted with the substance of
the addresses elsewhere delivered. This afforded me an opportunity of
making the personal acquaintance of some of the more distinguished
pupils. The clearness of their intellect, the thoroughness of their
knowledge in their several studies, and the distinctness of their
acquaintance with the outlines and principles of Martial learning
generally,—an acquaintance as free from smattering and superficiality
as necessarily unembarrassed by detail,—testified emphatically to the
excellence of the training they had received, as well as to the
hereditary development of their brains. What was, however, not less
striking was the utter absence at once of what I was accustomed to
regard as moral principle, and of the generous impulses which in youth
sometimes supply the place of principle. They avowed the most absolute
selfishness, the most abject fear of death and pain, with a frankness
that would have amazed the Cynics and disgusted the felons of almost
any Earthly nation. There were partial exceptions, but these were to
be found exclusively among those in training for what we should call
public life, for administrative or judicial duties. These, though
professing no devotion to the interest of others, and little that
could be called public spirit, did nevertheless understand that in
return for the high rank, the great power, and the liberal
remuneration they would enjoy, they were bound to consider primarily
the public interest in the performance of their functions—the right
of society to just or at least to carefully legal judgment, and
diligent efficient administration. Their feeling, however, was rather
professional than personal, the pride of students in the perfection of
their art rather than the earnestness of men conscious of grave human
responsibilities.
In conversing with the chief of this Faculty, I learned some
peculiarities of the system of government with which I was not yet
acquainted. Promotion never depends on those with whom a public
servant comes into personal contact, but on those one or two steps
above the latter. The judges, for instance, of the lower rank are
selected by the principal judge of each dominion; these and their
immediate assistants, by the Chief of the highest Court. The officers
around and under the Governor of a province are named by the Regent of
the dominion; those surrounding the Regent, as the Regent himself, by
the Sovereign. Every officer, however, can be removed by his immediate
superior; but it depends on the chief with whom his appointment rests,
whether he shall be transferred to a similar post elsewhere or simply
dismissed. Thus, while no man can be compelled to work with
instruments he dislikes, no subordinate is at the mercy of personal
caprice or antipathy.
Promotion, judicial and administrative, ends below the highest point.
The judges of the Supreme Court are named by the Sovereign—with the
advice of a Council, including the Regents, the judges of that Court,
and the heads of the Philosophic and Educational Institutes—from
among the advocates and students of law, or from among the ablest
administrators who seem to possess judicial faculties. The code is
written and simple. Every dubious point that arises in the course of
litigation is referred, by appeal or directly by the judge who decides
it, to the Chief Court, and all points of interpretation thus
referred, are finally settled by an addition to the code at its
periodical revision. The Sovereign can erase or add at pleasure to
this code. But he can do so only in full Council, and must hear,
though he need not regard, the opinions of his advisers. He can,
however, suspend immediately till the next meeting of the Council the
enforcement of any article.
The Regents are never named from among subordinate officials, nor is a
Regent ever promoted to the throne. It is held that the qualities
required in an absolute Sovereign are not such as are demanded from or
likely to be developed in the subordinate ruler of a dominion however
important, and that functions like those of a Regent, at least as
important as those of the Viceroy of India, ought not to be entrusted
to men trained in subaltern administrative duties. Among the youths of
greatest promise, in their eighth year, a certain small number are
selected by the chiefs of the University, who visit for this purpose
all the Nurseries of the kingdom. With what purpose these youths are
separated from their fellows is not explained to them. They are
carefully educated for the highest public duties. Year by year those
deemed fitter for less important offices are drafted off. There remain
at last the very few who are thought competent to the functions of
Regent or Camptâ, and from among these the Sovereign himself selects
at pleasure his own successor and the occupant of any vacant Regency.
The latter, however, holds his post at first on probation, and can, of
course, be removed at any time by the Sovereign. If the latter should
not before his death have named his own successor, the Council by a
process of elimination is reduced to three, and these cast lots which
shall name the new Autocrat from among the youths deemed worthy of the
throne, of whom six are seldom living at the same time. No Prince is
ever appointed under the age of fourteen (twenty-seven) or over that
of sixteen (thirty). No Camptâ, has ever abdicated; but they seldom
live to fall into that sort of inert indolence which may be called the
dotage of their race. The nature of their functions seems to preserve
their mental activity longer than that of others; and probably they
are not permitted to live when they have become manifestly unfit or
incapable to reign.
When first invited to visit the University, I had hoped to make it
only a stage and stepping-stone to something yet more interesting—to
visit the Arctic hunters once more, and join them in the most exciting
of their pursuits; a chase by the electric light of the great Amphibia
of the frozen sea-belt immediately surrounding the permanent ice-cap
of the Northern Pole. For this, however, the royal licence was
required; and, as when I made a similar request during the fur-chase
of the Southern season, I met with a peremptory refusal. "There are
two men in this world," said the Prince, "who would entertain such a
wish.
I
dare not avow it; and if there were a third, he would
assuredly be convicted of incurable lunacy, though on all other points
he were as cold-blooded as the President of the Academy or the
Vivisector-General." I did not tell Eveena of my request till it had
been refused; and if anything could have lessened my vexation at the
loss of this third opportunity, it would have been the expression of
her countenance at that moment. Indeed, I was then satisfied that I
could not have left her in the fever of alarm and anxiety that any
suspicion of my purpose would have caused.
I seized, however, the opportunity of a winter voyage in a small
vessel, manned by four or five ocean-hunters, less timid and
susceptible to surface disturbances than ordinary seamen. On such an
excursion, Enva, though a far less pleasant companion, was a less
anxious charge than Eveena. We made for the Northern coast, and ran
for some hundred miles, along a sea-bord not unlike that of Norway,
but on a miniature scale. Though in some former age this hemisphere,
like Europe, has been subject to glacial action much more general and
intense than at present, its ice-seas and ice-rivers must always have
been comparatively shallow and feeble. Beaching at last a break in the
long line of cliff-guarded capes and fiords, where the sea, half
covered with low islands, eats a broad and deep ingress into the
land-belt, I disembarked, and made a day's land journey to the
northward.
The ground was covered with a sheet of hard-frozen snow about eighteen
inches deep, with an upper surface of pure ice. For the ordinary
carriage, here useless, was substituted a sledge, driven from behind
by an instrument something between a paddle-wheel and a screw, worked,
of course, by the usual electric machinery. The cold was far more
intense than I had ever before known it; and the mist that fell at the
close of the very short zyda of daylight rendered it all but
intolerable. The Arctic circular thermometer fell to within a few
points from its minimum of—50° Centigrade
(?)
. No flesh could endure
exposure to such an atmosphere; and were not the inner mask and
clothing of soft leather pervaded by a constant feeble current of
electricity....
As we made our way back to the open sea, the temptation to disobey the
royal order was all but irresistible. No fewer than three kargyndau
were within shot at one and the same time; plunging from the shore of
an icy island to emerge with their prey—a fish somewhat resembling
the salmon in form and flavour. My companions, however, were terrified
at the thought of disobedience to the law; and as we had but one
mordyta (lightning-gun) among the party, and the uncertainty of the
air-gun had been before proven to my cost, there was some force in
their supplementary argument that, if I did not kill the kargynda, it
was probable that the kargynda might board us; in which event our case
would be summarily disposed of, without troubling the Courts or
allowing time to apply, even by telegraph, for the royal pardon. I was
suggesting, more to the alarm than amusement of the crew, that we
might close the hatches, and either carry the regal beast away
captive, or, at worst, dive and drown him—for he cannot swim very
far—when their objections were enforced in an unexpected manner. We
were drifting beyond shot of the nearest brute, when the three
suddenly plunged at once, and as if by concert, and when they rose,
were all evidently making for the vessel, and within some eighty
yards. I then learnt a new advantage of the electric machinery, as
compared with the most powerful steam-engine. A pressure upon a
button, and a few seconds sufficed to exchange a speed of four for one
of twenty miles an hour; while, instead of sinking the vessel below
the surface, the master directed the engine to pump out all the liquid
ballast she contained. The waterspout thus sent forth half-drowned the
enemy which had already come within a few yards of our starboard
quarter, and effectually-scared the others. It was just as well that
Enva, who heartily hated the bitter cold, was snugly ensconced in the
warm cushions of the cabin, and had not, therefore, the opportunity of
giving to Eveena, on our return, her version of an adventure whose
alarming aspect would have impressed them both more than its ludicrous
side, For half a minute I thought that I had, in sheer folly, exposed
half a dozen lives to a peril none the less real and none the more
satisfactory that, if five had been killed, the survivor could not
have so told the story as to avoid laughing—or being laughed at.
Sweet and serene as was Eveena's smile of welcome, it could not
conceal the traces of more than mere depression on her countenance.
Heartily willing to administer an effective lesson to her tormentors,
I seized the occasion of the sunset meal to notice the weary and
harassed look she had failed wholly to banish.
"You look worse each time I return, Madonna. This time it is not
merely my absence, if it ever were so. I will know who or what has
driven and hunted you so."
Taken thus by surprise, every face but one bore witness to the truth:
Eveena's distress, Eunané's mixed relief and dismay, shared in yet
greater degree by Velna, who knew less of me, the sheer terror and
confusion of the rest, were equally significant. The Martial judge who
said that "the best evidence was lost because colour could not be
tested or blushes analysed," would have passed sentence at once. But
if Eivé's air of innocent unconsciousness and childish indifference
were not sincere, it merited the proverbial praise of consummate
affectation, "more golden than the sun and whiter than snow." Eveena's
momentary glance at once drew mine upon this "pet child," but neither
disturbed her. Nor did she overact her part. "Eivé," said Enva one
day, "never salts her tears or paints her blushes." As soon as she
caught my look of doubt—