CHAPTER XIV
CHOKTROO
THE Lilamo were usually occupied in these sanitary duties, but at times the other section of their defence of Limanora claimed their attention. I had had good reason to know the force of the lilaran, or storm-cone, in my attempt to arrive in the island. Had it not been decided to permit our entrance, our perseverance would have failed of the attainment of our object.
I was soon to witness a marvellous display of the defensive and repulsive powers of the storm-cone. For some years after the first period of my novitiate and my partial admission to privileges as a citizen with which this period ended, there had been observed throughout the archipelago a movement which spread with considerable rapidity. It was one of the amusements of the Limanorans to watch the comedy of life upon the other islands through the idrovamolan, or instrument for distance seeing and hearing, which they had fixed high up the mountain. On a floating strip of irelium, that could be projected far into the sky, scenes beneath the horizon could be mirrored and watched through this instrument and through other instruments for reducing distance. The sounds, too, that rose from the scene re-echoed from the under-surface of the floating mirror, and could be magnified by the makrakoustic part of the idrovamolan into their original volume. A rarer and more difficult instrument was one which combined with this power of seeing and hearing at a great distance that of noting the magnetism working in a community even under the horizon.
Recently they had found that they could dispense with the floating mirror and reflector. The ether was their transmitter of all they wished to see or hear at a distance. Through it passed electric waves from even immeasurable distances, whilst the sky itself formed a sufficiently complete mirror for reflecting whatever was occurring under the horizon. By recent discoveries and inventions they were enabled to transform electric impulses into the scene or sound that gave them out into the surrounding air. Their new instruments would tap the occurrences at any point on any given line or in any given direction. They were now independent of any artificial medium for their knowledge of the outside world. The receivers of their new idrovamolan were every moment recording and analysing whatsoever occurred along the line in which it was directed; and its transformers were constantly translating the electric records into the forms or sounds which originally sent out the impulses; it was so constructed as to prevent the confusion of waves that came from different points on the route, for it moved with the swiftness of light or, if required, with that of electricity. These new modifications gave them hope that they would soon be able to see and hear much of what goes on in universes which, though invisible, yet transmit luminous and electric waves sufficiently strong to affect their telescopic instruments, and that the straggling rays of light or electricity might be transformed into the scenes and sounds which gave them birth.
As it was, the Limanorans were able to watch all that was going on in the islands around them. During their leisure hours, when it was their duty as well as their pleasure to relax the mind, they would sit and observe the life of what they called their menagerie. To them, indeed, the whirling eddy of existence with its ambitions and crimes, its luxury and misery, in the archipelago around seemed little more than the antics of monkeys or the internecine appetites of wild beasts. The scenes were generally amusing in the ape-like vanities and mimicries they exhibited. Sometimes they were offensive and even repulsive in their filth or brutalities. How beings formed like themselves could endure the grossness of their luxuries and the falsity and hollowness of their most admired social displays was to them a bewildering problem. Even the best of these islanders were as far behind the Limanorans in true human qualities as they thought themselves in advance of apes. The daily observation of these creatures so humanly endowed and yet so foul and blind in act was often too much to bear for any length of time; the most repulsive scenes were those of what was considered high life, of courts and courtly circles, of rulers and leaders of act and thought. “Who can bear the horror of their intrigues and hypocrisies, their cruel trampling of the fallen, their hideous fawning on the successful, their insolent pride and intolerance of the weak!” I often heard exclamations like this from the lips of the watchers as they turned away from the idrovamolan with a shudder. The combination of ape and bully, of reptile and vapourer was, in the thoughts of this people, the lowest depth to which human nature could fall; and it was the usual and most envied form in the high social life of most of these islands. The barbarism and ignorance of the poor and downtrodden marked a less retrograde phase of humanity. The sight of the posturings and scrapings, the insolence and spaniel manners of the higher classes served every day to deepen the horror of exile and to frighten every Limanoran from anything that would lead even to the slightest retrogression. Had it not been for this wholesome effect upon their minds, they would have long ago abandoned the custom of watching this beast spectacle of retrograde and showy civilisation, so much pain mingled with their amusement at it. They knew that their pity was vain; for it would take unremitting effort for thousands of years to raise these peoples to the Limanoran level, if the Limanoran missionaries had not in the meantime been dragged down to the lower level; and these thousands of years could be better spent in attaining higher and higher ideals in their own life. The task, they knew, was as hopeless as if these descendants of their degenerate exiles should attempt to drag the lower animals up to their stage of human development, and this irremediable nature of their state added to the pain of the observers.
Had the habit of watching the comedy of their menagerie been given up, the Lilamo would have still had to observe the enactment of history in the surrounding islands. It was part of their duty of defence to anticipate all armaments against Limanora; and they had discovered that there was unusual excitement amongst the various peoples since the arrival of the Daydream in their waters. It was evident that this formed an epoch in the history of the archipelago. The Lilamo reported the movements of the portentous smoke-pennoned ship which sailed in the teeth of all winds like their own ships of the air. What was to prevent it approaching Limanora in spite of the force of the storm-cone? The thought brought the first trace of fear into the breasts of this people; for, once a foreign element had been able to force its way into their midst, how could they prevent moral contamination and swift retrogression? Their advance would crumble away in a few centuries, nothing but their material progress being likely to survive the incursion of barbarism.
It was imperative that new measures of defence be adopted. It was then that the forces of Rimla had been enormously increased, thus making it possible for most of its energy to take the electric form in the storm-cone. With this they would be able to repel the new monster with so much metal in its bosom; they would play with it as with a toy on the water. All my wanderings had been narrowly watched, my landing in Aleofane, my escape from it, my sojourn in Tirralaria and ascent of Klimarol, my companionship with Sneekape and my scorn of him, my sympathy with the refugees in Nookoo, and my friendship with Noola. Nothing escaped their attention, and my character was analysed in the most minute way by deductions from the details of my conduct. It was decided that, if I showed eagerness and persistence enough, I should be allowed to land with Noola; but that my fire-ship and my men should be blown off from the coast.
Since then the affairs of the archipelago had been observed as narrowly as before, and especially the wanderings and history of the Daydream. As I expected, it passed finally into the possession of Broolyi, and the new ideas and methods it brought into the warfare of this isolated zone of the world made an era in its history. A great military organiser had arisen; and he had by the potency of his will moulded Broolyi into a unity which with the help of new fire-ships built on the model of my yacht had brought the other islands into subjection. Even the aristocratic and refined Aleofane with its subtle government and all-powerful central institutions had to bow its neck to the yoke. This strange romance had been enacting for more than a decade; and the Limanorans had been watching it, at first with amusement, and afterwards with resolution and clear purpose. They knew the whole of this subjugative process was based on hypocrisy and injustice and bloodshed, but it was not worse than the methods of political existence it displaced; it only meant the substitution of one vicious ideal for others as vicious. There would be more movement and activity for a time, but as soon as the masterful will had vanished, there would be a quick return to the old lazy luxury in the few and lazy misery in the many. It had cost multitudes of lives, and would cost many more before the military mania had burned itself out; but of what worth were most of those lives to themselves or to the world? They succeeded, where they did succeed, only in sustaining themselves wretchedly and perpetuating a strain of existence that was, if changed at all, tending downwards. The new spectacle was more sanguinary, but not one whit more dismal than the ones the Limanorans had witnessed for many generations. The misery was irremediable, the standard of existence was so low. To fence it off like a plague was all that could be done.
When I sat down to the idrovamolan I soon discovered the master of this transformation scene. I heard in Broolyi from all the entrenched camps and the towns loud huzzas and cries of “Long live Choktroo!” Turning the line of sight to the capital, the conflagration of cries which swept the crowded streets soon led my eye to the centre of the far-reaching magnetic thrill, the square of the imperial palace. There I saw step out on a balcony and bow to the enthusiastic populace a little firm-set figure that seemed to awaken memories in me. I strengthened the power of vision in order to examine the face more keenly, and, as a great burst of “Long live our emperor! Long live Choktroo!” kindled and blazed athwart the city, the identity of the little conqueror broke upon my consciousness.
It was my cabin-boy, Jock Drew, whom I had rescued from a life of degradation, if not ultimate infamy, in his native village. His father, the local chimney-sweep, a man of vigorous but small physique, had succumbed to the fate of so many of his trade, and swept his throat hourly with the fiercest of whiskey. His mother, a brave, strong little peasant girl, had died early of the effort to master this thirsty piece of humanity that had been tied to her, and his vice. The boy had the maternal lines in his nature, strong will, great courage, and fiery passion. It stirred my pity to see him struggle with such a mean destiny, doubtless to sink hopelessly into the ditch. He had been shielding himself from the temptation that his drunken father set before him by living in a world of penny romance. His imagination was strung to its highest pitch by the gory pages of his hard-won treasures. When he heard of my proposed expedition to the other side of the world, he came and pleaded for even the most menial position on board the Daydream. I was only too eager to rescue him from the hideous fate before him, and engaged him as cabin-boy.
After he came on board, some of the men were inclined to patronise him, and, when he resisted their approaches and grew sulky, to apply a rope’s end to him. I had to stand between him and them, even though I saw that in the end he would have the best of the quarrel; for he was strong of build and violent in temper, and only controlled himself, I could see, that he might have the surer and more complete revenge. He was a solitary, musing boy, and I thought to draw him from his solitude by interesting him in scientific and philosophical books; but he returned with the greater gusto to his penny series of lives of the great pirates, robbers, warriors, and conquerors. The only section of the Daydream’s library which could seduce him from his loved studies was that containing history and adventures. The crew, as was natural, held the studious little recluse too cheap; and occasionally felt the sting of his tongue when they bantered him; but his melodramatic manners and attitude, copied from the coloured representations of his heroes in his favourite series, laid him open again to their laughter and scorn. His mind was unwholesome with brooding over gory achievements and tremendous ambitions. He often uttered absurd boasts and gave himself airs that were incongruous with his minute figure and menial position, and Jock Drew ceased to be the butt of the ship only when I was present; but he never ceased to read and meditate. The laughter of his shipmates drove him more and more into his books and into himself. Later on in the voyage he extended his reading to books on naval architecture and the management of the steam-engine, and at last would spend hours assisting the engineer below. He came to know every part of the machinery and every secret of its construction and management. Indeed, the chief engineer acknowledged that in case of his illness he had an able successor on board. The guns and all the ironwork of the ship drew his attention next, and he came to be respected for his practical knowledge of every part; when anything needed mending, it was he who was ultimately called in to give advice or aid. Slowly he rose to be the real master of the Daydream, even though he continued to be laughed at for his heromimic airs and his occasional boasts. He had by his reading and studies made himself essential to every man on board, and his strong will exacted outward respect, if not obedience to him, in return. It was strange to see the revolution in the ship’s crew during their voyaging about the archipelago. When I came on board again, I saw that, though they continued a semblance of their old bantering, they had in their hearts begun to bow before the boy of twenty. The very gall of their scorn and of his menial position had driven him into this slow but striking revolt.
And here I saw the result. His boyhood, neglected and beaten, had given the cunning and worldly wisdom and concentration of power that belong in most to late maturity. The strength that had lain dormant for so many centuries in his mother’s peasant race had gathered in him like a torrent. The hard conditions of his youth had reined in the wildness and animality which had run riot in his father’s debauchery. Hundreds of such masterful natures, finding no sphere in their native locality to give scope to the long-dammed-up powers of their race, waste themselves in chafing against their petty surroundings and die with the reputation of miniature devils. The focussed energy of two long-suppressed races had in this case found its career and scope, and a diabolic conflagration was the consequence in this isolated region of the world. The race of Jock Drew had never before blossomed; now that it had found the fit soil, it had flowered portentously.
The misfortune was that his ill-moulded youth and his favourite reading had left him naked of morality. He was not in this respect much worse than the people whom he misled into war or than those whom he subjugated. He had only more concentrated will and energy and a keener appreciation of the means that would best satisfy his appetite for power. The complete suppression of the desire through thousands of years of his peasant ancestry made its ultimate manifestation on finding freedom of action all the more tremendous. It grew with growing self-confidence; and confidence grew with success. His bearing wholly altered during the wanderings of the Daydream before I had abandoned her. He had grown erect and threw his great chest out and held his large head up till he overawed his persecutors. Seeing him only in a sitting position or looking only at his bust one would have guessed him to be of lofty stature. Yet like his father and mother he never rose above five feet in height; and as his face filled up with good fare and the knowledge of his own powers it grew handsome and calm, seldom showing the fierce brute slumbering underneath. His wonderful self-control and reserve held him silent in circumstances where speech or action would have revealed his innate folly or animality, and he learned the power of such reserve, allied with sudden and decisive action, over the wills of others; he saw that it throws an air of mystery round the individuality. So he refrained from action till he had complete control of the circumstances and had gathered such resources into his hands as would astonish his rivals or enemies; silently, unscrupulously, he got to know the cards they held in their hands, whilst he concealed his own under seeming inaction; then with a sudden and unnerving move he threw all his forces upon them and demoralised them. I had watched the method in the little intrigues and conspiracies on shipboard, and I knew when I observed him through the idrovamolan that he was the same Jock Drew, only more developed by his astonishing successes.
He had found his opportunity when the Daydream finally anchored in the chief harbour of Broolyi. There was much need of government after the plague; the monarch and his family had fled and finally perished; and the two rivals for the position were almost equally matched. There was prospect of a long civil war. The wiser and stronger counsellors set up a republic, but this was only a feeble stop-gap. The flames of civil war burst out in spite of it.
Jock arrived at this stage of their history, and joined the staff of the competitor for the throne who held the capital and the key of the public treasury. He rapidly became prime adviser in the camp, and as soon as he had attracted confidence in himself and his character he set his method to work. He led an army out to attack the enemy, and completely routed them by the suddenness of his action; he had led one half of his troops straight out to meet the forces opposed to him, but he had sent the others round by a secret path into their rear, and they burst simultaneously upon the enemy. The surprise broke the spirit of the attacked and they fled in rout.
With wily stratagem he incited other officers to rival him, and took care that they went out under disadvantageous conditions. They failed, and their failures led to loud demands for Choktroo, as he came to be called. He now got command of the whole of the resources of the state, and used them for the making of guns and other surprises for the enemy. Meanwhile he allowed the enemy to think that his party was wholly demoralised by defeats, and they crept up towards the walls of the city in their excess of confidence. He knew by his spies in their camp how vainglorious they had become; but he allowed their bravado to rise to the pitch of foolhardiness, and then, his preparations being made, he opened fire upon them, from all sides. So complete was the rout, that the enemy disappeared from the country around and took refuge in distant castles and forts.
His name grew into a power of itself, rousing enthusiasm wherever he appeared and greatly terrifying his opponents. It was then that there began the most striking part of his career. All the brave and able generals who during the civil war had come up from the ranks were completely in his power. He sent them out to master castles or detachments of the enemy, but with such imperfect forces or supplies as would render them inactive. Their individual talents snatched occasional small victories, but as a rule they only prepared for ultimate victory by raising entrenchments and scouring the country around. Whenever he discovered that in any part a general was about to be successful in spite of his disadvantages, he hurried thither and led the troops to victory. If the feebleness of an officer anywhere seemed about to ensure defeat he marched reinforcements to his aid and turned it into success. Whenever he suffered defeat himself, he always managed to represent it as a brilliant success marred by the incompetence of some other general. At last he grew weary of the guerrilla warfare and resolved that it should end. So he withdrew his troops from siege-work and allowed the rebels to gather confidence and to mass again. He sent several generals against them with small armies. Their defeats gave the enemy still greater boldness. They ventured nearer to the capital; and when they were defiling through a pass he appeared on the heights with his guns. The two sections of his army closed the mouths of the pass, and the finest array the rebels had ever shown was shattered. The castles and forts soon surrendered. With one acclaim Choktroo was elected emperor, and the candidate whom he was supposed to be helping vanished from the scene.
His boyish reading had made him as much of an actor as he was by nature an organiser. Before long the whole people of Broolyi were adoring him as a god. Their passion was glory; and in him they had found the incarnation of glory. No piece of work in the state so minute but, if successful, he claimed as his own, even should it have been centuries old. No act of his own but, if unsuccessful, he found a scapegoat for. He was mean enough to steal and eavesdrop in his own household; he was bold enough to outlie the foulest of his minions, to outface the most manifest exposure of his crimes. He even dared to assume the rôle of divinity. He ringed himself round with mystery and ceremonial, and when he did appear in public made the appearance impressive by its display. He knew the effect of silence, and cheapened neither himself nor his words. He organised the state on military lines and made it centre in his personality.
He soon had exhausted the treasury and the resources of the country in the civil war and in his public displays. Nor could he keep up his glory long in inaction, even though it was an inaction of mystery. He must soon go to war beyond the bounds of the island. There he could shine, there he could get all the supplies he needed; but he had to keep up the farce the nation had played for centuries of professing to keep the peace, for he had adopted the title of the Prince of Peace. He had to make it appear that his wars were forced on him by his neighbours, and for this invented an elaborate system of diplomacies which enabled him to pick a quarrel and yet seem to have it thrust upon him.
His first quarry was Aleofane; for it was the wealthiest island in the archipelago. For years he kept up a show of alliance with it, till he had his fire-ships ready, built under his direction on the model of the Daydream. He racked his dominion to make guns and all kinds of firearms. When the expedition was complete, he made a demand of Aleofane that had show of reason and yet could not be complied with. It was refused, and his fleet was outside the capital before it could make preparation. He sent some of his ships to the other side of the island to land troops, and as these marched up by land he disembarked the rest under protection of his guns. The first battle decided the war. He dethroned the monarch of Aleofane and annexed the island to his dominions, setting up a viceroy, with a strong force to support him.
He drew new troops from the ranks of the people for service in other islands. He impoverished those nobles who refused to join his court or his staff. He broke the spirit of all who would not adore him, and he drained by taxation the resources of the country.
With still larger armies and larger fleets he swept conquering over the whole archipelago, till every people bowed before him. Those who distinguished themselves in his wars or in his service he elevated to new distinctions and titles. Those who died in his wars he beatified. With great ceremony he would raise all the dead on one of his battle-fields to the rank of sub-divinities, till his heaven was as crowded as his court. He did not obliterate the old religions; but he overshadowed them, and his policy kept subject to him the passion for glory in life and deification after death that lurks in every human bosom. The active and the romantic were strung up to enthusiasm by the magnetism of his name. Most thought it was his personality which set their blood throbbing, but it was only that his deeds and his histrionic power of magnifying them worked on their imaginations. How wild their fervour I could scarcely have realised had I not observed it with my own senses.
He had to keep moving and victoriously moving if his magnetism were not to vanish. When his empire included all the islands in the archipelago but the Isle of Devils in the centre, there was nothing for it but to attempt its conquest. We heard him bluster out his favourite bombastic phrases, learned from his penny romances and biographies. “Heaven is our ally, and who on earth can stand against us? Is it not our mission, the mission of a god, to chase all devils from the earth? Our last conquest shall be hell, and its denizens shall die by fire and sword.” Utterances and proclamations like this fired the imaginations of his soldiers, and they would have laid their lives down at the moment for this fire-eater. What he had boasted or threatened before, he had done, or had by astute fiction persuaded his followers that he had done; and what limit was there to his deeds? If he said that he would scale the heavens, they were certain he would do it. The thought fused them into a unity and chased out of their breasts the panic which the mere mention of the central isle produced.
He had not the traditional and hereditary ague-fit to overcome in his blood, yet there was a new sinking of the heart when he thought of his task. He had to reassure himself by wild rhodomontade, as he superintended the building and armament of an enormous fleet and the concentration of the largest army the archipelago had ever seen. He could not pick a diplomatic quarrel with his new victim; yet he must have at least the semblance of a cause in order to put heart into his followers. He announced that he had sent envoys to the Isle of Devils to open intercourse with it, but they were not allowed to approach. Again and again had he tried this pacific measure, but no heed had been given to him. Let vengeance be upon the heads of so churlish and unjust a people! How could such poltroons and men-haters be allowed to cumber the earth?
I watched the great fleet put out from Broolyi with its streamers of smoke. We could have heard the acclamations almost with the unaided ear; they rent the sky when Choktroo went on board his own fire-ship, which was thrice the size of the largest of the others, and thrice more brilliantly caparisoned. He passed with his favourite silent and self-absorbed look on his face through the applauding crowds on to a raised platform in the stern, reserved for him and his staff. Arrived there he paced silently with his chin resting on his folded arms. He knew what an impression of godlikeness this made on the crowd. Small though he was in stature, he doubtless seemed to his followers and the people on the shore to take gigantic proportions.
I was amazed to see so little perturbation amongst the Limanorans. They seemed to watch the whole scene as if it were a comedy. On the fleet steamed, and yet there was perfect calm in the community; only the Lilamo were at their posts on the peak of Lilaroma. The rest were peacefully seated at the idrovamolans or busy with their usual avocations. I knew the destructiveness of the great cannon that Choktroo had prepared, and the distance they would carry. On this point indeed I had been consulted some months before. I knew, too, how this people shrank from every act that would involve the loss of a human life. How were they to repel this great armament without whelming it in the ocean and drowning a large proportion of those in the ships? Thyriel could throw no light on the problem; we were both too young to be taken into the confidence of the wise men or to know their designs. I could do nothing but watch the fleet and then pass to my daily duties.
A night passed, and at dawn we could see the islands of smoke lie black on the horizon; the ships themselves had not appeared. Choktroo evidently knew that it was useless to conceal the expedition or its object from this far-seeing people under the darkness of night. It was too well known throughout the archipelago how penetrative was their gaze. He meant to make his attack by day. Soon the funnels and the masts broke the sky-line. Yet there was not a sound from the storm-cone. The slight wind had fallen; everything favoured the invader. He could see through the translucent air every feature of our island and almost every movement of its inhabitants as soon as we could discern the human beings on board his ships with the naked eye. Were they getting drawn into some gigantic trap? This thought evidently occurred to the leader of the armament, as it occurred to me, for the fleet lessened speed. I could see Choktroo, at a loss what to do, on his poop consulting with his officers, who could help him little. Still the storm-cone stood silent on the mountain-peak.
The bold step had to be taken; the order was given for advance. The smoke again streamed in the rear of the fleet, and I could see the gunners prepare for action and the sailors and soldiers set the boats ready for launching. What had happened to the Lilamo? Were they all asleep? Was the progress of the island at last to be trampled under the feet of this brutal soldier and his forces? The fire-ships were almost within cannon-shot of the shore; there puffed out the preliminary whiff from the side of Choktroo’s steamer and the ball fell with a roar into the ocean between. Another five minutes and matters would be past remedy. Yet there was perfect calm among the Limanorans. I controlled my excitement and watched the fleet. Everything was bustle on board, and when I sat down to the idrovamolan all sounds were jubilant and boasting. This Isle of Devils was at last to have her master. This proud isolation was at last to be broken. Such exclamations I could hear from the gunners as they loaded and ran out their guns.
All was silence, for all was ready for the word of command. Choktroo paced his poop in scarce-controllable glee. His thoughts were doubtless stretching out beyond the fog circle to the countries he had left behind him with his boyhood, other worlds for him to conquer. His arms were folded and his eye was turned inward; he knew that the whole expedition was awaiting his nod. Soon he stopped stone-silent and stiff, as if to give the decisive word. I waited the action, but he still stood moveless. I looked over the ship; there was his staff awaiting his beck as if petrified. Every man was at his post, but not a muscle moved; the eyes stared as if they belonged to the dead. My glance took in the other ships; all were as silent and still as the grave. The whole armament seemed turned to stone.
Then there fluttered down upon the vessels human figures that I recognised as of the Lilamo. In a moment a Limanoran pilot stood at the helm of each fire-ship; and as if by nature the whole fleet turned majestically round and made for the shelving beach of a low uninhabited island underneath the horizon. On and on they sped straight for the shore, round whose margin not the least fringe of surf whitened. Through the idrovamolan I could hear the grating keels as they struck the sand and pebbles at full speed. The crash seemed to awaken the crews and the soldiers, who rubbed their eyes as if roused from a dream. Before them the bows of their ships were burrowing themselves in the blown sand of the beach; but already I could see the pilots winging their way through the sky back to Limanora.
There was a silent power in the lilaran which I had not investigated: its power of magnetism. This it could exercise several miles off; but it grew feebler with the distance. In this aspect, then, the lilaran could not be used as a weapon of defence far from the shore of Limanora. If, however, there was a mass of iron or like magnetisable metal in the ship that contained its victims, its power had been discovered to be as great far as near. It was only recently that they had so far developed their personal power of arresting the consciousness by sudden sleep-petrifaction as to be able to exercise it at a distance. This they accomplished by material aids to the magnetic faculty. The sudden flashing of brilliant objects before the eyes and the use of powerful magnets had been found to intensify the somnifactive power of the eye and the magnetic sense. This led them to make experiments with the concentrated power of magnets all brilliant with irelium jewels. The result was that they found the somnifactive power to reside even more in things than in persons. They tried it through the lilaran on Limanorans of the most powerful will at the farthest corner of the island, and found it to be the more effective the more power they concentrated and the more iron or metals of similar quality were near the patient.
This result had been reached about the time they had come to see that the invasion of their island by Choktroo was inevitable without some other than the mere wind-power of the lilaran. Step by step the Lilamo brought their new weapon to perfection; at any moment they could concentrate the forces of Rimla into this faculty of the lilaran. They experimented on Limanorans in boats out at sea, and finally could tabulate the magnetic powers at various distances. This explained to me the flashings I had often seen on the horizon and had taken for an effect of the idrovamolan; but they were too near the surface of the sea for that. This explained the perfect calm with which the Limanorans watched the approach of Choktroo’s expedition and the thrilling keenness of the flashes that swept over his fire-ships.
I watched for many days the effect of this great blow upon the nature and fortunes of my old cabin-boy. Over his immediate staff and army he was able to regain his full sway as soon as they recovered from the shock; but his power over the other islanders was completely shaken. Bodies of them launched the boats from the steamers and made off for their own islands before the leaders were aware of their intentions. The moment Choktroo realised the position he turned his still uninjured guns in the direction of the sea and commanded all issue from the beach where his ships were buried. For wholesome example he sank several boats which had almost got out of his reach. Then he set his army to dig canals around one of his fire-ships; but no sooner was she ready for floating than the whole force of the lilaran was turned in her direction; the waves rose and a single night’s surf completely undid the labour of days. The ship was as deeply embedded as ever; and her sisters had almost disappeared beneath the sand-dunes. The weight of metal in them shortened the process of burial.
It was clear that nothing could be done to save the expedition or bring its material back to Broolyi. Before many days we saw the soldiers embark somewhat sadly in the boats and find their way across the ocean to the adjacent islands. Piecemeal the whole army retraced its steps to Broolyi.
It was not likely that Choktroo would allow this slur to rest on his fame and eat into his power like rust, for there was clear evidence that his influence over even the Broolyians had greatly suffered. By means of his advertising and his histrionic abilities he had brought them to believe that he was invincible; they now began to feel that he had the same limitations as themselves: he was powerless against the magic of the Isle of Devils. All his wiles were needed to check the spread of panic and distrust. He first of all minimised the defeat in his proclamations, and before many months were over he had come to speak of it as a victory marred by the invincible powers of nature. He had been quick to recognise the similarity of the phenomenon to that we had experienced in the Daydream when running the gauntlet of the fog circle, and he sent out party after party to explore the ring of mystery and to come back with tales of its magical powers of inducing sleep. Thus was he soon able to convince the archipelago that the failure of his great expedition was due, not to the inhabitants of the Isle of Devils, but to the forces of nature. He had in his own eye and will great mesmeric power, and by practice was able to develop it into something that he could exercise at pleasure. Then he made public exhibition of his capacity in the various islands. He threw numbers into mesmeric sleep, nor would he or could he release them from its thrall. They became his willing slaves and lived only to please him. A milder form of mesmeric fascination he used in order to rivet his despotism on his armies. He would address sections of them with bombastic self-glorification of his deeds and powers and with flatteries of them and their glorious courage. His personal magnetism worked upon them as they gazed at him, and by the close of his speech he had them enthralled to his will.
It was not long before he was feared as a magician by all who did not mesmerically worship him; and tens of thousands were eager to do the most wicked and shameful deeds, if only he bade them. Yet he dared not shrink from another fall with the inhabitants of the Isle of Devils; else even this preternatural fascination that he exercised might vanish. For years he racked the wealth of the islands and built an enormous fleet of still more powerful fire-ships, and armed it with still more powerful guns. To supply the funds for the expedition, those who were not trained fighting men became slaves, who toiled for him all but their few hours of sleep. Rebellion against this galling and impoverishing despotism was slowly forming in the breasts of the people. Many of them were disappearing mysteriously. They had betaken themselves to unapproachable caverns like Nookoo, and my dreamer of Swoonarie was arming them with his plague-pellets. A few more months and revolution would have broken out against the despot, and he at least would have perished; but the expedition sailed in all its pomp, again deeply impressing the imaginations of the islanders. This time he had taken precautions against the somnifaction of his army by means of a sleep-expelling drug. Every man was furnished with a dose of it to take as soon as they came near the dreaded isle. The Lilamo had been busy for some time, I had seen; but the Limanorans were as unconcerned at this approach as at the former one. What new defence had they? I could see no more preparation than there had been on the previous occasion. The calm which prevailed reassured me; yet soon I grew restless with the fear that this fire-eating cabin-boy with the mystery in his eyes would sully the shores of Limanora with his vulgar ambitions.
My fear became alarm as I saw on the horizon the smoke of the fleet and heard through the idrovamolan the shout of triumph rise from the army when the peak of Lilaroma had burst on their view. I could see each man drink his drug; and I thought that all was lost. Suddenly there came a roar from every ship; and I could see that it accompanied a plume of steam that escaped from the sides. The boiler of every fire-ship had evidently been punctured; and soon I could see that it cost those on board unceasing effort to keep afloat. The soldiers were about to take to the boats when a deeper-mouthed roar numbed every other sound. It was the lilaran at work, and the whole fleet soon vanished over the horizon before its compulsive blast.
The puncturing had been accomplished by submarine action. The Lilamo had sent through the waters their floating batteries, which by nicely adjusted weights lay beneath the surface right on the track of the fleet. The electric cables by which they were secured could shift them hither and thither; and through them immense force could be applied, sending a volley of keen darts up towards whatever iron there was above them. These darts had entered the hulls of the ships just beneath the water-line and made their way into the iron of the engines; one or other told on the boilers and disabled the ships. The electric floats were unseen by the expedition, and the wounding of the fleet was as mysterious and magical as the sleep had been on the previous attempt. Panic seized on every soldier and sailor, and they thanked their gods when the blast of the lilaran hurried them to the shelving beach of a low island and they heard the keels grate on shingle and sand. They scrambled on shore through the surf and found shelter from the wind behind the mounds that covered the former fleet or under their gaunt ribs or sides.
But a new panic overcame them when they discovered that their leader was gone and could nowhere be found. Then it was remembered that in the worst of the storm which blew from Lilaroma a giant bird had swooped down towards his ship and rested for a moment on the platform, where he stood in solitary meditation, and as suddenly soared up again. It was two messengers of the Lilamo who had been sent in one of their bird-shaped airships to make an end of these warlike expeditions. They had alighted beside Choktroo, and by the powerful means they commanded had sent him into a deep sleep in spite of his drug; they tossed him into their airship and in a few moments were high in the azure rushing before the blast of the lilaran. Away they fled with him all day and all night across the belt of fog, and having reached the outer world they let him down still tranced on the shore of a lonely coral islet of the Pacific close to a group inhabited by a savage and warlike tribe. Choktroo had their instincts and ambitions; let him master the savages when he awakened. A wild beast could do no harm amongst wild beasts.
His memory and example haunted the archipelago like an evil dream for generations. Some thought that he had been borne aloft to heaven by a messenger of the gods, and worshipped him as divine; his cruel tyranny and wars goaded on his worshippers to wild fury of injustice and slaughter. Others who were keener of brain and had perceived the earthly character of their leader and his purposes were incited to like ambitions. The romance of his life was glorified in verse and prose by every new school of literature and fired the imaginations of boyhood to warlike exploits. War, piracy, plunder came to be the favourite forms of dishonesty in the archipelago. It was marvellous how much the peaceful and obscure suffered from the romance of this cabin-boy’s adventures.
But no man of the islands dared again to approach the Isle of Devils. Even he whom so many of them reputed a god had been unable to break in; and the mishap to the last fleet had been more bewildering than that to the first. Magical powers were possessed by the inhabitants of this island without a doubt; there seemed to be no limit to their transcendence of the order of nature. Evil they were, and the fear of them the Broolyians had to endure in patience. Nor did it grow less from generation to generation. Fancy never let the stories of the defeat of the great Choktroo rest; they gathered to them features more and more terrible to contemplate. A halo of dread and mystery is far more effective as a fence against human intrusion than a halo of sanctity or even divinity. It cows the miscreant and the brute in the human breast. The duties of the Lilamo in repelling the attacks of men would vanish for hundreds of generations.
For Choktroo, his fate was a romantic contrast to that of his fame. Reports were brought in by the idrovamolan or by flying messengers who had ventured over the belt of fog. He was rescued by the neighbouring tribe before he starved on the barren islet, only to be threatened with sacrifice to one of their gods. A missionary who had some influence over the heathen arrived at the moment of sacrifice and saved him. After learning their language he worked his way by intrigues and assassinations and what they thought magic up to the headship of the tribe. When he had made himself secure in his power over them, he built a great fleet of war-canoes, and, after mastering the groups of islands within range and enlisting their warriors and canoes in his service, he set sail southward for some land they knew not of. South and then east the fleet made way, his followers still unalarmed. At last appeared the circle of mystery on the horizon. He gave the word to row forward into it; but, before the command had reached the outermost of the canoes, he was hurled from his platform into the sea, and, as he rose to the surface, he was promptly speared by his own immediate staff. Round swung the heads of the canoes by one simultaneous impulse. Their chief had become a madman to think of entering that belt of mystery; and away they paddled for very life; nor did they cease their frantic efforts till the dark cloud had sunk beneath the horizon.