i woke next morning to an odor even more inspiring than the smell of violets. there was that about it which at first made me distrust my senses. it seemed too good to be true—that searching, pervading, heavenly odor. i closed my eyes and opened them to make sure i was awake. then it came again—more persistent than before—and with it a sputter and a crackle. it was! it was! i could not be deceived—it was frying fish!
gale, it seems, had risen early, upturned some insects and worms from under the violet sod, and found splendid fishing but a step away. mr. sturritt had promptly joined him, and now there was ready a breakfast that made up for many days of fasting and tablets.
“i don’t know what kind of fish they are,” explained gale, “but they seemed as hungry as we were, so we formed a sort of mutual benefit association. sort of a first aid to the famished.”
the morning was still and beautiful. we had rested on violet beds, and after our bounteous 229breakfast we set out southward again, in the joyous expectation of further discovery. we were in excellent spirits; the air was balm and the dangers of cold and hunger were behind us. it is true that the billowcrest was also there, and between, a wide desolation which we could hardly hope to surmount with our present resources. but this fact we kept in the background. it was not an immediate concern, and we were willing to believe that to-morrow, and the day after, and the month following would in some manner provide ways and develop means.
chauncey gale became particularly jubilant as we ascended.
“if all the people are like that girl we saw last night,” he said at last,—“i don’t mean of course if they are all dead, but if they all look like that,—it seems to me that this is about the best addition the lord has yet laid out. maybe this is his own little pet corner down here, and he didn’t think anybody else would find it. you know i felt a good deal that way when i laid out tangleside. it was a little shut-in neck of woods, and some of johnnie’s friends liked it, so we just bought it and let ’em have it. i didn’t suppose anybody else would ever think of wanting to live there, but they did. people found out that we didn’t want them, and you couldn’t keep them away with clubs. they overrun 230the place and ruined it. johnnie couldn’t do a thing with them. they cut out the trees and bushes that grew there, and set out a lot of nursery stuff that broke johnnie’s heart in six months. if this place should turn out to be a sort of tangleside of the lord’s, i suppose he’d like it just as well if we kept out. but if the people are all like that girl——”
“you shall know presently,” interrupted ferratoni. “they are just ahead.”
he had scarcely spoken before during the morning, and there was now a quality in his voice that made us all look first at him, and then in the direction his eyes followed. we thought he might have received some mental impression, but saw now that just beyond a little knoll on the shore, and coming down to the marge to meet us, were the figures of men. it did not surprise us; we had expected them even sooner. during our approach they regarded us, as we them, in silence.
they were very fair—almost pallid of countenance—graceful rather than robust. their dress was quite simple in form. something akin to both the early syrian and japanese it seemed, and appeared to have grown for them, rather than to have been constructed by artificial devices. their faces were smooth, and their hair long—parted on top and gathered loosely at the back with a sort of circlet 231or band. to me they seemed as a part with the fields and sky behind them—some new flowering of our enchanted land.
all were young, but one younger and handsomer than the others advanced as our boat grounded. his wide-sleeved coat, or tunic, of soft glistening white was embroidered over with the flower of the plains above us. that he was of rank seemed evident. gale, who was in the bow, stepped ashore and held out his hand to this fair youth, who laid his own in it, unhesitatingly.
“how are you?” greeted gale, heartily. “glad to see you. we’ve had all kinds of a time getting here, and it’s good to find somebody at home. my name is gale, chauncey gale, and these are my friends. we’re from new york city, united states of america—best town and biggest country on earth. we’ve come down here to discover you, and take a look at your country to see whether we want to annex it or not. up till yesterday we didn’t think we did, but the farther we get into your proposition the better we like it. now, tell us who you are.”
during this rather characteristic greeting the youth had been regarding gale with puzzled inquiry. he answered now with a gentle flow of aspirate syllables—a little address it seemed. the sounds were pleasant to the ear, but often barely 232audible. as he spoke, he pointed now and then to the half-dozen others about him.
we followed gale ashore, and something like a general hand-shaking took place. the youth’s followers, however, showed no disposition to do more than lay their palms to ours for a brief instant, and then retire. but when the youth himself came to ferratoni, their hands lingered together, and the puzzled look that had been on the face of each melted away. then the youth spoke again, still holding ferratoni’s hand. when he had finished, the latter, turning to us, said:
“he is the prince of the purple fields. we are in the borders of his domain. with his followers he escorted until yesterday a young lady of his court for a distance on her journey to the land of the silent cold. it was she we passed. two days ago something which must have been our balloon bag was blown to them, and it was thought we were not far distant. they have dimly known of our coming, somewhat as i had received an impression of their existence.”
we regarded our companion with increasing wonder and amazement.
“but, ferratoni,” i said, “you do not mean to say that you understand their language.”
“not the words. the language of thought is the same to all men. the vibration between us is 233by no means perfect, but when timed to the slow measure of speech, the mental echo is sufficiently good to follow his meaning.”
“look here,” asked gale, “can’t you twist up my strings a little? i’d like to get in key and know what’s going on, too.”
“and does he also follow your thought?” i put in.
but the youth was speaking again and ferratoni gave him close attention. then he interpreted.
“the conscious exchange of thought without words, he tells me, marks their advancement in communication—perhaps somewhat as the wireless interchange of words marks ours. their progress has been along different lines it seems. the prince and his sister, the princess of the lilied hills, whose domain lies beyond this, bid us welcome. your thought, however, he does not reach as yet, except through me, and this requires a double or repeated process, somewhat like translation.”
“well,” muttered gale, “i’m rather glad of that. i want to have a few thinks all to myself when i’m in a new place and seeing things.”
the prince now said something further to ferratoni, and then with his suite set off up the bank.
“their boats are just above,” the latter explained. “we are to overtake them, and all proceed up the river together.”
234around a little bend we found them waiting for us. they had two barges, long, graceful and beautiful, similar to the canoe of the american indian in shape, but propelled by slender oars in the hands of tall, youthful oarsmen of bare arms and heads, and fair, smooth faces. near the center of each craft there was a sail of the simplest banner form, white but embroidered with the blue flower of the prince’s domain. truly they seemed to us as an integral part of the world about them.
mr. sturritt, who had hitherto remained silent, leaned over to me and murmured:
“look—er—at them, and—and then at us. we’re not very—that is—attractive, while they—why it’s just as if they were condensed—i should say—er—materialized, as it were, from the elements.”
and chauncey gale:
“better food than tablets, just to look at them, eh, bill?”
“sustenance for the soul,” said ferratoni.