Across the Zodiac (61 page)

"The scheme, Prince, was confessed in my own hearing by one of its
instruments; and in proof thereof, my own life, as a Chief of the
Order, was attempted this morning."

The Prince sprang to his feet in all the passion of a man who for the
first time receives a personal insult; of an Autocrat stung to the
quick by an unprecedented outrage to his authority and dignity.

"Who has dared?" he said. "Who has taken on himself to make law, or
form plans for carrying out old law, without my leave? Who has dared
to strike at the life over which I have cast the shadow of my throne?
Give me their names, my guest, and, before the evening mist closes in
to-morrow, pronounce their doom."

"I cannot obey your royal command. I have no proof against the only
man who, to my knowledge, can desire my death. Those who actually and
immediately aimed at my life are shielded by the inviolable weakness
of sex from the revenge and even the justice of manhood."

"Each man," returned the Prince, but partially conceiving my meaning,
"is master at home. I wish I were satisfied that your heart will let
you deal justly and wisely with the most hateful offspring of the most
hateful of living races—a woman who betrays the life of her lord. But
those who planned a general scheme of destruction—a purpose of public
policy—without my knowledge, must aim also at my life and throne; for
even were their purpose such as I approved, attempted without my
permission, they know I would never pardon the presumption. I do not
sit in Council with dull ears, or silent lips, or empty hands; and it
is not for the highest more than for the lowest under me to snatch my
sceptre for a moment."

"Guard then your own," I said. "Without your leave and in your
lifetime, open force will scarcely he used against us; and if against
secret murder or outrage we appeal to the law, you will see that the
law does justice?"

"I will," he replied; "and I pardon your advice to guard my own,
because you judge me by my people. But a Prince's life is the charge
of his guards; the lives of his people are his care."

He was silent for a few minutes, evidently in deep reflection.

"I thank you," he said at last, "and I give you one warning in partial
return for yours. There is a law which can be used against the members
of a secret society with terrible effect. Not only are they exposed to
death if detected, but those who strike them are legally exempt from
punishment. I will care that that law shall not menace you long.
Whilst it remains guard yourselves; I am powerless to break it."

As I quitted the Palace, Ergimo joined me and mounted my carriage.
Seizing a moment when none were within sight or hearing, he said—

"Astona was found two hours ago dead, as an enemy or a traitor dies.
She was seen to fall from the roof of her house, and none was near her
when she fell. But Davilo has already been arrested as her murderer,
on the ground that he was heard before sunrise this morning to say
that she must die."

"Who heard that must have heard more. Let this news be quickly known
to whom it concerns."

I checked the carriage instantly, and turned into a road that
conducted us in ten minutes to a public telegraph office.

"Come with me," I said, "quickly. As an officer of the Camptâ your
presence may ensure the delivery of letters which might otherwise be
stopped."

He seized the hint at once, and as we approached a vacant desk he said
to the nearest officer, "In the Camptâ's name;" a form which ensured
that the most audacious and curious spy, backed by the highest
authority save that invoked, dared neither stop nor search into a
message so warranted. Before I left the desk every Chief of the Zinta
at his several post had received, through that strange symbolic
language of which I have already given samples, from me advice of what
had occurred and from Esmo warning to meet at an appointed place and
time.

The day at whose close we should meet was that of Davilo's trial. I
mingled with the crowd around the Court doors, a crowd manifesting
bitter hostility to the prisoner and to the Order, of whose secrets a
revelation was eagerly expected. Easily forcing my way through the
mass, I felt on a sudden a touch, a sign; and turning my eyes saw a
face I had surely never looked on before. Yet the sign could only have
been given by a colleague. That which followed implied the presence of
the Signet itself.

"I told you," whispered a voice I knew well, "how completely we can
change even countenance at will."

It was so; but though acquainted with the process, I had never
believed that the change could be so absolute. By help of my strength
and height, still more perhaps by the subtle influence of his own
powerful will acting none the less imperiously on minds unconscious of
its influence, Esmo made his way with me into the Court.

Around five sides of the hexagon were seats, tier above tier,
appropriated to the public who wish to see as well as hear. The
phonograph reported every word uttered to hundreds of distant offices.
Against the sixth side were placed the seats of the seven judges; in
front, at an equal elevation, the chair of the prisoner, the seats of
the advocates on right and left, and the place from which each witness
must deliver his testimony in full view and within easy hearing both
of the bench, the bar, and the audience. Davilo sat in his chair
unguarded, but in an attitude strangely constrained and motionless.
Only his bright eyes moved freely, and his head turned a little from
side to side. He recognised us instantly, and his look expressed no
trace of fear.

"The
quârry
" whispered Esmo, observing my perplexity.

"It paralyses the nerves of motion, leaving those of sensation active;
and is administered to a prisoner on the instant of his arrest, so as
to keep him absolutely helpless till his sentence is executed, or till
on his acquittal an antidote is administered."

The counsel for the prosecution stated in the briefest possible words
the story of Astona, from the moment when she left my house to that at
which she was found dead, and the method of her death; related
Davilo's words, and then proceeded to call his witnesses. Of course
the one vital question was whether by possibility Davilo, who had
never left my premises since the words were uttered, could have
brought about a death, evidently accidental in its immediate cause, at
a distance of many miles. His words were attested by one whom I
recognised as an officer of Endo Zamptâ, and I was called to confirm
or contradict them. The presiding judge, as I took my place, read a
brief telling terrible menace, expounding the legal penalties of
perjury.

"You will speak the truth," he said, "or you know the consequences."

As he spoke, he encountered Esmo's eyes, and quailed under the gaze,
sinking back into his seat motionless as the bird under the alleged
fascination of the serpent. I admitted that the words in question had
been addressed to me; and I proved that Davilo had been busily engaged
with me from that moment until an hour later than that of the fatal
accident. There being thus no dispute as to the facts, a keen contest
of argument proceeded between the advocates on either side. The
defenders of the prisoner ridiculed with an affectation of scientific
contempt—none the less effective because the chief pleader was
himself an experienced member of our Order—the idea that the actions
or fate of a person at a distance could be affected by the mere will
of another; and related, as absurd and incredible traditions of old to
this purport, some anecdotes which had been communicated to me as
among the best attested and most striking examples of the historical
exercise of the mystic powers. The able and bigoted sceptics, who
prosecuted this day in the interests of science, insisted, with equal
inconsistency and equal skill, on the innumerable recorded and
attested instances of some diabolical power possessed by certain
supposed members of a detested and malignant sect. A year ago the
judges would probably have sided unanimously with the former. But the
feeling that animated the conspiracy, if it should be so called,
against the Zinta, had penetrated all Martial society; and in order to
destroy the votaries of religion, Science, in the persons of her most
distinguished students, was this day ready to abjure her character,
and forswear her most cherished tenets. As has often happened in Mars,
and may one day happen on Earth as the new ideas come into greater
force, proven fact was deliberately set against logical impossibility;
and for once—what probably had not happened in Mars for ten thousand
years—proven fact and common sense carried the day against science
and "universal experience;" but, unhappily, against the prisoner.
After retiring separately for about an hour, the Judges returned.
Their brief and very confused decisions were read by the Secretary.
The reasons were seldom intelligible, each contradicting himself and
all his colleagues, and not one among the judgments having even the
appearance of cohesion and consistency. But, by six to one, they
doomed the prisoner to the vivisection-table. As he was carried forth
his eyes met ours, and the perfect calm and steadiness of their glance
astounded me not a little.

My natural thought prompted, of course, an appeal to the mercy of the
Throne. In every State a power of giving effect in the law's despite
to public policy, or of commanding that, in certain strange and
unforeseen circumstances, common sense and practical justice shall
override a sentence which no court bound by the letter of the law can
withhold, must rest with the Sovereign. But in Mars the prerogative of
mercy, in the proper sense of the word—judicial rather than political
mercy—is exercised less by the Prince himself than by a small council
of judges advising him and pronouncing their decision in his name.
Even if we could have relied on the Camptâ with absolute confidence,
there were many reasons against an appeal which would, in fact, have
asked him to declare himself on our side. While such a declaration
might, in the existing state of public feeling, have caused revolt or
riot, it would have put on their guard, perhaps driven to a premature
attempt which he was not prepared to meet, the traitors whose scheme
against his life the Prince felt confident that he should speedily
detect and punish.

All these considerations were brought before our Council, whose debate
was brief but not hurried or excited. The supreme calm of Esmo's
demeanour communicated itself to all the eleven, in not one of whom
could I recognise till they spoke my colleagues of our last Council.
The order went forth that a party should attend Esmo's orders at a
point about half a mile distant from the studio in which, for the
benefit of a great medical school, my unhappy friend was to be put to
torture indescribable.

"Happily," said Esmo, "the first portion of the experiment will be
made by the Vivisector-General alone, and will commence at midnight.
Half an hour before that time our party will be assembled."

I had insisted on being one of the band, and Esmo had very reluctantly
yielded to the unanimous approval of colleagues who thought that on
this occasion physical strength might render essential service at some
unforeseen crisis. Moreover, the place lying within my geographical
province, several of those engaged looked up to me as their immediate
chief, and it was thought well to place me on such an occasion at
their head.

The night was, as had been predicted, absolutely dark, but the roads
were brilliantly lighted. Suddenly, however, as we drew towards the
point of meeting, the lights went out, an accident unprecedented in
Martial administration.

"But they will be relighted!" said one of my companions.

"Can human skill relight the lamps that the power of the Star has
extinguished?" was the reply of another.

We fell in military order, with perfect discipline and steadiness,
under the influence of Esmo's silent will and scarcely discernible
gestures. The wing of the college in which the dissection was to take
place was guarded by some forty sentinels, armed with the spear and
lightning gun. But as we came close to them, I observed that each
stood motionless as a statue, with eyes open, but utterly devoid of
sight.

"I have been here before you," murmured Esmo. "To the left."

The door gave way at once before the touch of some electric instrument
or immaterial power wielded by his hand. We passed in, guided by him,
through one or two chambers, and along a passage, at the end of which
a light shone through a crystal door. Here proof of Esmo's superior
judgment was afforded. He would fain have had the party much smaller
than it was, and composed exclusively of the very few old and
experienced members of the Zinta within reach at the moment. We were
nearly a score in number, some even more inexperienced than myself,
half the party my own immediate followers; and I remembered far better
the feelings of a friend and a soldier than the lessons of the college
or the Shrine. As the door opened, and we caught sight of our friend
stretched on the vivisection table, the younger of the company,
hurried on by my own example, lost their heads and got, so to speak,
out of hand. We rushed tumultuously forward and fell on the Vivisector
and two assistants, who stood motionless and perhaps unconscious, but
with glittering knives just ready for their fiendish work. Before Esmo
could interpose, these executioners were cut down with the "crimson
blade" (cold steel); and we bore off our friend with more of eagerness
and triumph than at all befitted our own consciousness of power, or
suited the temper of our Chief.

Never did Esmo speak so sharply or severely as in the brief reprimand
he gave us when we reassembled; the justice of which. I instinctively
acknowledged, as he ceased, by the salute I had given so often at the
close of less impressive and less richly deserved reprimands on the
parade ground or the march. Uninjured, and speedily relieved from the
effects of the
quârry
, Davilo was carried off to a place of
temporary concealment, and we dispersed.