The Germ Growers: An Australian story of adventure and mystery by Robert Potter (best historical fiction books of all time .txt) 📖

“But how,” inquired I, “can you come into our world without having any direct sensation of its whereabouts?”

“Once we have been here,” he said, “it is a matter of easy calculation to us to fix the locality; and we can communicate the elements of the calculation to others who have not been here.”

Here he paused, and rose to his feet, and as we were about to rise he signed to us to keep sitting.

“Now,” he said, “hearken carefully while I tell you of those into whose power you are fallen.” And as he spoke it seemed to me that his attention was directed more especially to myself.

He went on—“The Infinite One, ages before your worlds were formed, called the ethereal host into being. [212] And at first they were like your brute creatures, only with vastly greater powers and intelligence; yet, like them, for their vast powers were not under the control of any will of their own, for there was no such thing then as will, except the will of the Infinite One.

“But it pleased the Infinite One at last to give His creatures will. That which is His own prerogative He communicated to them in order that He might give manifold scope to the eternal love which is His essence. That will of theirs it was His will that they should exercise in conformity with that eternal love. But being free it might oppose that eternal love, not indeed to eternity, but for incalculable cycles of time.

“A few, a very few, as compared to the whole number, opposed themselves to Him, and as the ages passed these grew ever more evil, and ever more full of hatred of Him and of all who hold with Him. A very few they were as compared with those who held with Him, but a great many when compared with all the men who inhabit this little world of yours, or who ever have inhabited it.”

Here he paused again, and there was dead silence for a space, and then Jack spoke, and his voice was like that of a man hurried and somewhat overawed.

[213] “But how did the will to resist the will of the Infinite One ever come into being at all?”

“It was a possibility from the moment when the first free being was created, and it became actual by the gradual and undue admixture of things in themselves good. The desire to do great things is good, and the joy to be able to do great things is good. But if these two good things are suffered to govern the whole being, they become the possible germs, inert as yet, of self-assertion and pride. And then when the call for self-sacrifice comes, as it must, to the finite in the presence of the Infinite, the will, the spark of divine life which the Creator has committed to the creature, rises up against the sacrifice, and by its action fertilises the germs of self-assertion and pride.

“So began the deadly war of the finite with the Infinite. That had its origin in ‘worlds before the man,’ and it speedily passed over into man’s world, and would long ago have destroyed it had not the Infinite One Himself become human in order to teach men by His own example and in His own Person the divine lesson of self-sacrifice.”

Here Leäfar paused again and sat down, and seemed to wait for some question from us. I was quite powerless to speak. I felt quite awe-stricken and shamed, [214] but presently I heard Jack’s voice ringing out clearly and confidently like the voice of a fearless and innocent child.

“Sir Leäfar,” he said, “do the men who inhabit this valley belong to the evil race you speak of?”

“Yes,” he replied, “they are some of the least powerful, though not the least evil among them.”

“And what is their purpose here?”

“Their purpose in general is to set the inhabitants of your world against the will and purpose of the Infinite One, to teach them to call evil good and good evil. And they work out this purpose by a great variety of methods.

“They assume human forms, and they have dwellings in the most inaccessible parts of your worlds, near the summits of the loftiest mountain ranges, and in the polar regions, and in remote islands, and in deserts as here. When civilised men move into their neighbourhood they move away; and they destroy most of the marks of their occupation. Sometimes nothing remains; sometimes, it may be, a few huge rocks standing on end, or piled one upon another. Such remains, when you discover them, you account for by attributing their formation to races of men who have passed away.

[215] “From these remote settlements of theirs they make excursions into the inhabited world; they mingle sometimes among men, stirring them to murder and rapine, sowing discontent among the people, and prompting rulers to tyrannous deeds of cruelty and violence. This Niccolo Davelli, as he calls himself, was very active in the most corrupt and violent years of the tenth century, when he was the active adviser of an Italian bandit baron.

“But they have seldom taken prominent action in their own persons in more modern times, although here and there they appear in subordinate characters, stirring up strife and all kinds of evil, and then they pass elsewhither.

“But this Davelli has lately taken up a line of action against God and man which some of the more powerful of his kind took up ages ago with far wider success; he has established here, and in the inaccessible parts of the Himalayas, and in one or two other places, artificial seed-beds of pestilence. His emissaries gather, from all quarters, germs of natural and healthful growth, and submit them to a special cultivation under which they become obnoxious and hurtful to human nature. And then they sow them here and there in the most likely places, and thus produce [216] disease, death, and disaster among men. The black death, and the plague, and smallpox, and cholera, and typhus and typhoid fevers have all had their origin in this way, and some of these are kept alive since by the carelessness of men. But of later years men are beginning to understand health and disease better, and so the power of these evil beings is becoming greatly restricted in this direction.”

Here he paused again, and I took heart and said—

“Is it simply to gratify their love of inflicting pain that they cultivate and propagate these plagues?”

“Partly that, no doubt,” he said, “but, above all, their purpose is to set men against the Infinite One by making them believe Him to be the Creator of painful and abominable diseases.”

“But why should they not blame Him,” said I, “if He has called into existence those evil beings who invent such diseases?”

“Suppose,” replied Leäfar, “that a human enemy were to poison your water supply. Would you blame God or man?”

“Man, I suppose,” replied I.

“Yes,” he said, “for you would recognise the fact that man, being man, is free, and that once his freedom absolutely ceases he is no longer man. The Infinite [217] One may, if He so please, take away his freedom, but by so doing He annihilates the man.”

“You raise a hard question,” said I; “is the Infinite One, then, committed to the eternal prevalence of evil? Is He pledged never to annihilate the power to do evil?”

Leäfar answered very slowly and solemnly, and yet there was a smile upon his countenance as he spoke.

“There is one thing impossible to the Eternal Love, and that is to annihilate Himself: and it would be to annihilate Himself if He were to permit the existence of Eternal hatred.”

“Then,” said I, “if I understand you rightly, these beings are doomed to annihilation?”

He smiled again and said, “Surely the freedom which opposes and continues to oppose God must perish: it is self-doomed; that is as certain as that the Love of God is infinite. The creature who so misuses his freedom must lose it at last, and then he is as if he had never possessed it. And so his moral being is, as you say, annihilated. All his other powers remain, but his will is dead. He becomes, like the brute, or like the earliest of the ethereal creation; nothing but an instrument in the hand of God. Such is the eternal doom of those who choose evil and abide by their choice. No [218] pain remains, no hatred remains, no sin remains, because no opposition to God remains. But no real soul remains. The moral being is dead and done with, only an intellectual being remains.”

“And what becomes of them?”

“They become the beasts of burden of the universe: they become instruments for carrying on the various mechanisms of the visible creation. They become subject to us just as your horse is to you. Many such are under my own direction and control.”

Here Jack started and almost interrupted him, then hesitated and said, “I beg your pardon.”

“Say on,” replied Leäfar, quite softly and kindly.

“What I was going to say,” said Jack, “was this: It seems to me that the final doom of which you tell us must have come to some of them before this.”

“Some of them are meeting it every day,” said he. “The mightiest of them can hold out for periods of secular vastness without losing their power of will in any appreciable degree; others, again, lose it all after a period comparable with the life of a man.”

“And do they all know that they must lose it?”

“As well as you know that you must die.”

“Ah!” said Jack, “I thought so, and now, sir, [219] tell me one thing more: if this doom comes upon them while they are in human form, what happens then?”

“They pass back at once into their own world and are dealt with as I have told you there.”

“Yes, I see it now. Two of the men here appeared to be missing the other morning, and when Davelli missed them I saw his face change with terror and malignity. I said to my friend here, ‘Depend upon it the loss of these men has got something to do with his damnation.’ Did I not say so, Bob?”

I nodded assent.

“It is true,” said Leäfar.

“Then surely,” said I, “they must be dying out rapidly.”

“Dying out, certainly, but not as rapidly as you might suppose.”

“Have they,” said I, “the power to reproduce their kind?”

“No,” said he; “the dwellers in the ether ‘neither marry nor are given in marriage.’ But they recruit their failing ranks from amongst men and from races analogous to man in other worlds like yours; they win them over to their side here and then claim them when they pass over there. Sometimes they steal them away [220] from this world. Their purpose is to steal you away, one of you or both.”

“Steal us! Surely that would not be permitted?”

“It is not possible unless you yourselves give yourselves away.”

“How should we give ourselves away?”

“If you submit your will to theirs they get power over you, power which is hard to shake off, and which is very easily increased.”

Here he paused, and the smile which usually attended his pauses did not appear. A sad expression, severe yet very gentle, took its place. There was a silence of several seconds. Then I stood up and spoke, standing.

“Hear me, sir. I remember and repent my faults. I knew that this man was a bad man. Nay, I had begun to suspect that he was something other and worse than a bad man. But I saw that he knew things which I longed to know, and so I suffered myself to forget his badness and I did for the moment submit myself to his will. He exercised his power upon me and he deceived me in its exercise. He transferred me to the surface of the moon, or showed it me in a trance, I know not which. I am conscious ever since of being somehow in bondage to him; although I am now [221] determined to resist him to the death. Is there any hope?”

“Yes, there is hope, surely, although you may have, as you say, to resist him to the death. But if you die resisting him he will have no power over you after death. I am come to rescue both you and your friend. He runs no such risk as you do, although you are both in great danger of your lives.”

“And but for my compliance, I suppose neither of us would have run any risk at all.”

“Not so. You were both of you in great danger of your lives, and your friend is still so. But any further compliance on your part will make you the slave of this