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  CHAPTER XVII - PRESENTED AT COURT.

  Leading Eveena by the hand--for to hold my arm after the Europeanfashion was always an inconvenience and fatigue to her--and precededby Ergimo, I walked unnoticed to the closed gate of pink crystal,contrasting the emerald green of the outer walls. Along the front ofthis central portion of the residence was a species of verandah,supported by pillars overlaid with a bright red metal, and wrought inthe form of smooth tree trunks closely clasped by creepers, the silverflowers of the latter contrasting the dense golden foliage andruby-like stems. Under this, and in front of the gate itself, were twosentries armed with a spear, the shaft of which was about six feet inlength, hollow, and almost as light as the cane or reed handle of anAfrican assegai. The blade more resembled the triangular bayonet.Beside each, however, was the terrible asphyxiator, fixed on itsstand, with a bore about as great as that of a nine-pounder, butincomparably lighter. These two weapons might at one discharge haveannihilated a huge mob of insurgents threatening to storm the palace,were insurrections known in Mars, These men saluted us by dropping thepoints of their weapons and inclining the handle towards us; gazingupon me with surprise, and with something of soldierly admiration forphysical superiority. The doors, wide enough to admit a dozenMartialists abreast, parted, and we entered a vaulted hall whosearched roof was supported not by pillars but by gigantic statues, eachpresenting the lustre of a different jewel, and all wrought withsingular perfection of proportion and of beauty. Here we were met bytwo officers wearing the same dress as the sentries outside--a diaperof crimson and silver. The rank of those who now received us, however,was indicated by a silver ribbon passing over the left shoulder, andsupporting what I should have called a staff, save that it was ofmetal and had a sharp point, rendering it almost as formidable aweapon as the rapier. Exchanging a word or two with Ergimo, thesegentlemen ushered us into a small room on the right, whererefreshments were placed before us. Eveena whispered me that she mustnot share our meal in presence of these strangers; an intimation whichsomewhat blunted the keen appetite I always derived from a journeythrough the Martial atmosphere. Checked as it was, however, thatappetite seemed a new astonishment to our attendants; the need of foodamong their race being proportionate to their inferior size andstrength. When we rose, I asked Ergimo what was to become of Eveena,as the officers were evidently waiting to conduct me into the presenceof their Sovereign, where it would not be appropriate for her toappear. He repeated my question to the principal official, and thelatter, walking to a door in the farther corner of the room, soundedan electric signal; a few seconds after which the door opened, showingtwo veiled figures, the pink ground of whose robes indicated theirmatronhood, if I may apply such a term to the relation of his hundredtemporary wives to the Campta. But this ground colour was almosthidden in the embroidery of crimson, gold, and white, which, as I soonfound, were the favourite colours of the reigning Prince. To theseladies I resigned Eveena, the officer saying, as I somewhatreluctantly parted from her, "What you entrust to the Campta'shousehold you will find again in your own when your audience is over."Whether this avoidance of all direct mention of women were matter ofdelicacy or contempt I hardly knew, though I had observed it on formeroccasions.

  When the door closed, I noticed that Ergimo had left us, and theofficers indicated by gesture rather than by words that they were tolead me immediately into the presence. I had considered with some carehow I was, on so critical an occasion, to conduct myself, and hadresolved that the most politic course would probably be an assumptionof courteous but absolute independence; to treat the Autocrat of thisplanet much as an English envoy would treat an Indian Prince. It wasin accordance with this intention that I had assumed a dress somewhatmore elaborate than is usually worn here, a white suit of a substanceresembling velvet in texture, and moire in lustre, with collar andbelt of silver. On my breast I wore my order of [illegible], and in mybelt my one cherished Terrestrial possession--the sword, reputed thebest in Asia, that had twice driven its point home within a finger'sbreadth of my life; and that clove the turban on my brow but a minutebefore it was surrendered--just in time to save its gallant owner andhis score of surviving comrades. In its hilt I had set the emeraldwith which alone the Commander of the Faithful rewarded my services.The turban is not so unlike the masculine head-dress of Mars as toattract any special attention. Re-entering the hall, I was conductedalong a gallery and through another crystal door into the immediatepresence of the Autocrat. The audience chamber was of no extraordinarysize, perhaps one-quarter as large as the peristyle of Esmo'sdwelling. Along the emerald walls ran a series of friezes wrought ingold, representing various scenes of peace and war, agricultural,judicial, and political; as well as incidents which, I afterwardslearnt, preserved the memory of the long struggles wherein theCommunists were finally overthrown. The lower half of the room wasempty, the upper was occupied by a semicircle of seats forming part ofthe building itself and directly facing the entrance. These took upabout one-third of the space, the central floor being divided from theupper portion of the room by a low wall of metal surmounted by archessupporting the roof and hung with drapery, which might be so loweredas to conceal the whole occupied part of the chamber. The seats rosein five tiers, one above the other. The semicircle, however, wasbroken exactly in the middle, that is, at the point farthest from theentrance, by a broad flight of steps, at the summit of which, andraised a very little above the seats of the highest tier, was thethrone, supported by two of the royal brutes whose attack had been sonearly fatal to myself, wrought in silver, their erect heads formingthe arms and front. About fifty persons were present, occupying onlythe seats nearest to the throne. On the upper tier were nine or tenwho wore a scarlet sash, among whom I recognised a face I had not seensince the day of my memorable visit to the Astronaut; not preciselythe face of a friend--Endo Zampta. Behind the throne were ranged adozen guards, armed with the spear and with the lightning gun used inhunting. That a single Martial battalion with its appropriateartillery could annihilate the best army of the Earth I could not butbe aware; yet the first thought that occurred to me, as I looked onthese formidably armed but diminutive soldiers, was that a score of myArab horsemen would have cut a regiment of them to pieces. But by thetime I had reached the foot of the steps my attention was concentratedon a single figure and face--the form and countenance of the Prince,who rose from his throne as I approached. Those who remember thatLouis XIV., a prince reputed to have possessed the most majestic andawe-inspiring presence of his age, was actually beneath the ordinaryheight of Frenchmen, may be able to believe me when I say that theAutocrat of Mars, though scarcely five feet tall, was in outwardappearance and bearing the most truly royal and imposing prince I haveever seen. His stature, rising nearly two inches over the tallest ofthose around him, perhaps added to the effect of a mien remarkable fordignity, composure, and self-confidence. The predominant and mostimmediately observable expression of his face was one of serene calmand command. A closer inspection and a longer experience explainedwhy, notwithstanding, my first conception of his character (and it wasa true one) ascribed to him quite as much of fire and spirit as ofimpassive grandeur. His voice, though its tone was gentle and almoststrikingly quiet, had in it something of the ring peculiar to thosewhich have sent the word of command along a line of battle. I felt asI heard it more impressed with the personal greatness, and even withthe rank and power, of the Prince before me, than when I knelt to kissthe hand of the Most Christian King, or stood barefooted before thegreatest modern successor of the conqueror of Stamboul.

  "I am glad to receive you," he said. "It will be among the mostmemorable incidents of my reign that I welcome to my Court the firstvisitor from another world, or," he added, after a sudden pause, andwith an inflection of unmistakable irony in his tone, "the first whohas descended to our world from a height to which no balloon couldreach and at which no balloonist could live."

  "I am honoured, Prince," I replied, "in the notice of a greaterpotentate than the greatest of my own wo
rld."

  These compliments exchanged, the Prince at once proceeded to morepractical matters, aptly, however, connecting his next sentence withthe formal phrases preceding it.

  "Nevertheless, you have not shown excessive respect for my power inthe person of one of my greatest officers. If you treated the princesof Earth as unceremoniously as the Regent of Elcavoo, I can understandthat you found it convenient to place yourself beyond their reach."

  I thought that this speech afforded me an opportunity of repairing myoffence with the least possible loss of dignity.

  "The proudest of Earthly princes," I replied, "would, I think, havepardoned the roughness which forgot the duty of a subject in the firstobligations of humanity. No Sovereign whom I have served, but wouldhave forgiven me more readily for rough words spoken at such a moment,than for any delay or slackness in saving the life of a woman indanger under his own eyes. Permit me to take this opportunity ofapologizing to the Regent in your presence, and assuring him that Iwas influenced by no disrespect to him, but only by overpoweringterror for another."

  "The lives of a dozen women," said the Campta, still with that covertirony or sarcasm in his tone, "would seem of less moment than threatsand actual violence offered to the ruler of our largest and wealthiestdominion. The excuse which Endo Zampta must accept" (with a slight butperceptible emphasis on the imperative) "is the utter differencebetween our laws and ideas and your own."

  The Regent, at this speech from his Sovereign, rose and made the usualgesture of assent, inclining his head and lifting his left hand to hismouth. But the look on his face as he turned it on me, thus partlyconcealing it from the campta, boded no good should I ever fall intohis power. The Prince then desired me to give an account of themotives which had induced my voyage and the adventures I hadencountered. In reply, I gave him, as briefly and clearly as I could,a summary of all that is recorded in the earlier part of thisnarrative, carefully forbearing to afford any explanation of themanner in which the apergic force was generated. This omission thePrince noticed at once with remarkable quickness.

  "You do not choose," he said, "to tell us your secret, and of courseit is your property. Hereafter, however, I shall hope to purchase itfrom you."

  "Prince," I answered, "if one of your subjects-found himself in thepower of a race capable of conquering this world and destroying itsinhabitants, would you forgive him if he furnished them with the meansof reaching you?"

  "I think," he replied, "my forgiveness would be of little consequencein that case. But go on with your story."

  I finished my narration among looks of surprise and incredulity fromno inconsiderable part of the audience, which, however, I noticed theless because the Prince himself listened with profound interest;putting in now and then a question which indicated his perfectcomprehension of my account, of the conditions of such a journey andof the means I had employed to meet them.

  "Before you were admitted," he said, "Endo Zampta had read to us hisreport upon your vessel and her machinery, an account which in everyrespect consists with and supports the truth of your relation. Indeed,were your story untrue, you have run a greater risk in telling it herethan in the most daring adventure I have ever known or imagined. TheCourt is dismissed. Reclamomorta will please me by remaining with mefor the present."

  When the assembly dispersed, I followed their Autocrat at his desireinto his private apartments, where, resting among a pile of cushionsand motioning me to take a place in immediate proximity to himself, hecontinued the conversation in a tone and manner so exactly the same asthat he had employed in public as to show that the latter was notassumed for purposes of monarchical stage-play, but was the naturalexpression of his own character as developed under the influence ofunlimited and uncontradicted power. He only exchanged, for unaffectedinterest and implied confidence, the tone of ironical doubt by whichhe had rendered it out of the question for his courtiers to charge himwith a belief in that which public opinion might pronounce impossible,while making it apparent to me that he regarded the bigotry ofscepticism with scarcely veiled contempt.

  "I wish," he said, "I had half-a-dozen subjects capable of imaginingsuch an enterprise and hardy enough to undertake it. But though we allprofess to consider knowledge, and especially scientific knowledge,the one object for which it is worth while to live, none of us wouldrisk his life in such an adventure for all the rewards that scienceand fame could give."

  "I think, Prince," I replied, "that I am in presence of one inhabitantof this planet who would have dared at least as much as I have done."

  "Possibly," he said. "Because, weary as most of us profess to be ofexistence, the weariest life in this world is that of him who rulesit; living for ever under the silent criticism which he cannot answer,and bound to devote his time and thoughts to the welfare of a racewhose utter extermination would be, on their own showing, the greatestboon he could confer upon them. Certainly I would rather be thediscoverer of a world than its Sovereign."

  He asked me numerous questions about the Earth, the races that inhabitit, their several systems of government, and their relations to oneanother; manifesting a keener interest, I thought, in the great warswhich ended while I was yet a youth, than in any other subject. Atlast he permitted me to take leave. "You are," he said, "the mostwelcome guest I ever have or could have received; a guestdistinguished above all others by a power independent of my own. Butwhat honour I can pay to courage and enterprise, what welcome I cangive such a guest, shall not be unworthy of him or of myself. Retirenow to the home you will find prepared for you. I will only ask you toremember that I have chosen one near my own in order that I may seeyou often, and learn in private all that you can tell me."

  At the entrance of the apartment I was met by the officer who hadintroduced me into the presence, and conducted at once to a dooropening on the interior court or peristyle of the central portion ofthe Palace. This was itself a garden, but, unlike those of privatehouses, a garden open to the sky and traversed by roads in lieu ofmere paths; not serving, as in private dwellings, the purposes of acommon living room. Here a carriage awaited us, and my escortrequested me to mount. I had some misgivings on Eveena's account, butfelt it necessary to imitate the reserve and affected indifference onsuch subjects of those among whom I had been thrown, at least until Isomewhat better understood their ways, and had established my ownposition. Traversing a vaulted passage underneath the rearward portionof the Palace, we emerged into the outer garden, and through this intoa road lighted with a brilliancy almost equal to that of day. Ourjourney occupied nearly half an hour, when we entered an enclosureapparently of great size, the avenue of which was so wide that,without dismounting, our carriage passed directly up to the door of alarger house than I had yet seen.