Pharaoh's Broker<br />Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner by Ellsworth Douglass (thriller books to read txt) 📖

love with a queen of your own making, who is no more than a dumb idiot!" chuckled the doctor.

"Silence!" I shouted hotly, for I was unspeakably sorry for the poor girl. "There are softer,[215] kinder words than those by which to call a poor blank soul that's born awry. The Kemi are quite right, for this girl, having no sense, has yet been wiser to-day than both of us and all these wise men." Then turning, I addressed the ruler in Hebrew:

"Thou shouldst know that in our land the seizing of the right hand is a salutation of friendship and welcome, much the same as the pressure of the cheek is here. We had vainly tried to signal to your soldiers that we were friendly, and when this woman stretched out her pretty hand I was pleased to seize it warmly. Call thou a soldier now and send her safely home. Let the white rabbit belong henceforth to her. She hath unwittingly been God's messenger in bringing us together. Mayhap she hath saved the lives of many of the people. Wherefore let them remember her, and henceforth treat her kindly. And as for those other women in the Park, bid them all return to their homes, and let it generally be known that there will be peace, and no further war. The terms of truce we will arrange with thee and with the Pharaoh somewhat later. We wish no gifts or offerings of peace. No more do we desire than that the Pharaoh shall entertain us for a season until we learn your ways, and then permit us to live quietly in this, your city, obedient to your laws, and pursuing such careers as our abilities may fit us for."

"All this that ye desire, and more, most gladly[216] shall be done, and a grand festival shall be appointed for this night to celebrate the peace. The Pharaoh will entertain you and his royal friends with feasting and with dancing, and the terms of the compact between us shall then be ratified."

At this point a grey-beard interrupted the young ruler, and a spirited conversation took place between them, after which the youth asked,—

"Tell me now, are there not many more such men as ye upon the Blue Star, who may come to wage a further war with us?"

"Have no fear for that," I answered. "The vessel in which we came is the sole means of bridging that vast space, and no more can come, unless indeed we bring them. But all of them shall keep the covenant we make with thee."

Then Zaphnath held a long consultation with the wise men, which ended by the summoning of three soldiers—one to take the woman home, another to carry the news of peace to the Park and to the people, and the third, as I supposed, to convey a message to the Pharaoh; but before the last was despatched, Zaphnath said to me,—

"Our messengers reported a third curious person with you, having a much larger body and long moving horns. What have ye done with him? Is he left in charge of your travelling house?"

Then I explained this circumstance to them, as well as the incident of my smoking, which I promised to repeat at the banquet in the evening.[217] After hearing this they dispatched the third messenger.

"We have heard, not only that ye breathed smoke and carried flames in your limbs, but that your flesh was of iron, invulnerable to arrows; that ye were stronger than birds, and carried the thunder and lightnings of the gods with which to kill; and that ye were able to walk through the air as well as on the ground."

"'Tis true we are stronger than any birds upon our proper star, and that we kill with a thunder and a lightning. Our flesh is tougher and more solid than thine, yet 'tis not of iron. But tell me, what knowest thou of iron?"

"'Tis a rare, precious metal which we coin for money, but I see thou carriest much of it. Thy thunderers are made of it."

"And hast thou no metal, bright and yellow, such as this?" I asked, exhibiting my gold watch.

"In truth, the Pharaoh alone is able to possess such riches, and in all the land of Kem there is no such huge lump of it as that!" he exclaimed in wonder, while the sleepy wise men opened their big eyes.

"We have within our belts many coins of this, which we may barter with the Pharaoh for things more plenteous here."

"Are ye travelling traders then, or what were your occupations on the Blue Star? Were ye warriors, rulers, wise men, or owners of the soil?"[218]

"My good friend here hath been a wise man, as thou must know from his grey beard," I answered, smiling at the doctor. "He hath been a teacher of knowledge to the people, and it was his superior wisdom which contrived the house in which we travelled hither."

"But hath it not been a folly to teach wisdom to the people? When they have learned, the wise man turneth fool! Wisdom groweth ripe by being bottled, but whoso poureth it out for every thirsty drinker wasteth good wine upon gross beasts!"

"In its youth our star held to these opinions, but now it teacheth wisdom to every child, and in this manner we have made progress into many things not even dreamed of here. As for my own profession, I have been a dealer in wheat, the bread-grain of our star. Hast thou here such a small grain growing at the bearded end of a tall straw?"

"In truth, the land of Kem raiseth so large a store of such a grain as to feed all the surrounding countries! Our greatest traffic is in this wheat. Hast thou not seen the green fields of it lining the banks of the Nasr-Nil, until the sight tires following it? This season there cometh such a crop as Kem hath never seen before, and for six years we have been blest with its plenty——"

Here he was interrupted by the hurried return of the third messenger, who addressed him in excited tones. As the Kemi use no gestures, and but[219] little facial expression in their conversation, I could not guess the import of his message. Therefore when it was translated by the youth it was all the more surprising.

"The soldier saith that a certain curious man of Kem, anxious to explore thy travelling house, ventured within it, when presently it rose and sailed away with him far out of the city, and was lost from sight in the red distance!"

This was an unforeseen, stupefying development. I left the doctor to guard our things, and rushing out I leaped the courtyard wall and ran with all haste to the Park. The projectile was gone! No sign or trace of it was anywhere to be seen. Willingly or not, we were henceforth chained to Mars!

[220]

CHAPTER VI The Iron Men from the Blue Star

Returning from Long Breath, I could not but notice the entire subsidence of the terror, which had previously been so marked, and the general signs of rejoicing which were now taking its place. It was easy to see that I was an object of absorbing interest and busy comment. No one pointed the finger at me, for that rude gesture was as unknown as it was unnecessary. The mere turning of a great pair of eyes quickly in my direction was an indication, significant enough, that I was being denoted.

I now understood the more composed behaviour of the women. They were accustomed to the idea of being taken in war, and never suffered slaughter or hardship thereby, but merely a change of masters. As they now left the Park they eyed me curiously, as if wondering from what sort of new master they had escaped. I imagined I could detect some signs of disappointment among them, at being cheated out of a trip to a new star or being dismissed from the service of a god. Occasionally[221] one of them would incline her head gently to the right to meet her rising hand, in a dignified salutation. I approached one of the fairest of these and extended my hand. She seemed rather surprised, but calmly placed an iron coin in my palm! Evidently I must make haste to learn the Kemish salutation, or I would pass for a common beggar! My hand certainly did look hard and brown, compared with her perfectly white and transparent skin, through which the blood suffused the beautiful pink flush of life. But even if a hotter sun had scorched and tanned my hand, it did not look as dark and tough as the coin, although the soldiers had spread the report that our flesh was of iron.

The chief business activity in the city seemed to be the transporting from the surrounding country of an endless number of fibrous bags filled with the bread-grain. I saw some of these bags open in the shops, and the grain was shaped like wheat, but as large and less solid than a coffee berry. Trains of asses bearing these bags were seen in every street and entering by every gate. Each train of fifteen or twenty asses was driven by a sandalled Martian, wearing the spread bird-wing which seemed to denote the Pharaoh's service. The animals had the lazy, sluggish, plodding habits which I expected, and in these respects their driver differed very little from them. He gave an occasional long hiss, followed by[222] a jerky grunt, which sounded like "sh-h-h-h, kuhnk!" and was evidently intended to hurry the animals, but it served them quite as well as a lullaby. These drivers, who doubtless had just been hearing stories of me, were a little surprised at coming upon me so soon, but looked me over deliberately, as if calculating how much iron money I would make, if there were no waste in the coinage!

But I hastened back to the doctor at the Palace, being obliged to leap the courtyard wall again, for I was not acquainted with the signal to command the Terror-birds. He expected no other report of the projectile than the one I brought.

"The only hope is that the meddling Martian may have turned in but one battery," he said. "In time this will exhaust itself, and the projectile will tumble back upon Mars. If it should strike in the water, it may not be shattered, but of course it might be submerged. The chances that we will ever see it again are extremely remote. If it should be discovered anywhere on the planet, it would probably be coined up into money, and the fortune of the Pharaoh would hardly buy us iron enough to make another. Well, the unexpected always happens. It was a fatal mistake ever to have left it."

"If it is gone for good," I answered, "let us hope that this planet may suit us better than the Earth, anyhow. We are certain of an easy existence[223] here at least. One shield will coin into money enough to supply our wants a long time. If we had not been so dreadfully secretive on Earth, perhaps some one, infringing our ideas, might have built another projectile and sent a relief expedition!"

Preparations for the banquet were rapidly being made about the Palace by men servants. We saw no female servants, and we learned afterward that they did no menial work, except the serving of the meals, which was rather an artistic duty.

We were conducted to two large ante-chambers, adjoining the banquet room, where we deposited our armament and proceeded to make ourselves at home as well as we could. The rooms were gloomy and poorly lighted, but a great number of servants were busy waiting upon us, and one presently brought in four portable gas-burners, placing them in a circle about my head as I reclined on a large pillow of soft down, laid on the floor. These burners thus furnished both heat and light, and nearly all the rooms were thus lighted and heated throughout the day. They had windows and a very thick, coarse, translucent but not transparent glass in them. But as the sunlight was never strong, rooms were rarely ever light enough for comfort without the flames of gas.

This was my first acquaintance with Martian gases, which I soon found to be very numerous and various in use. On the other hand, very few liquids existed. The atmospheric pressure was so[224] low that what might have existed normally as liquids on Earth, took the form of heavy gases here. In every case they were heavier than the air, so that they remained in vessels just as a liquid would have done. The four lamps were made of reeds and shaped like the letter U. The right-hand side of the U was a large vertical reed, connecting neatly at the bottom with a very much smaller reed forming the other prong and terminating at the top in a tip of baked earth, turned downward, so that it would discharge the gas away from the lamp. A light stone weight was fitted to slide neatly down the large vertical tube