Chapter XX: The Island of Twilight

The spin over the sea about thirty miles in length, through a swift current of bracing air, was soon accomplished. The heights of the great island quickly towered before them. Melandria had a more terrestrial look: there were bays and roadsteads, where many ships might have lain at anchor. But of these there were none; all communication with the mainland was through the air. A large town lay along the sea border, with a long esplanade and something like earthly roads, and highways led out from it into the interior. The island was at least one hundred miles in circuit; its greatest breadth was about twenty miles, narrowing to a long trailing peninsula, not much wooded, but covered with open moorlands, while the glowing orb of the sun on the horizon lit up the whole landscape with a sunset splendour. In the middle of the island was a high-peaked hill, from the summit of which a dazzling spot of white snow could be discerned to the south.

“There is Aptaura, the boundary line between two hemispheres, close to the southern pole, and twenty miles in height,” said Mexitli.

They anchored on the top of the peak. Near to the top, in a sheltered hollow, lay a beautiful country house, the residence of the governor of Melandria, whose name was Andron. He only held office during the King’s lifetime. He was a very learned man, and he rejoiced at the opportunity of conversing with the Professor and his companions. So the party at once repaired to the house, where a sumptuous meal was provided. The expression must not be taken in too terrestrial a sense, for, in Atalanta, the actual amount of drink and still more of food would hardly, as regards quantity, have sufficed a child from the other planet. The native foods and drinks were practically medicines of a very palatable order, and were all intended to have a direct influence upon the bodily frame. The more exquisite the delicacy the more dangerous it would be to indulge too freely in it. Carmichael looked with astonishment at Radcliffe, supping on a small plate of some high-coloured substance and a slender goblet of pale rose-tinted liquid.

The guests, however, had all the more leisure at their disposal for talk. The Professor, for their own good, told them many interesting facts about the earth and its ways, while Radcliffe plied others with questions as to the planet on which he had resolved to spend his remaining years of life. Andron was much interested in astronomy, and told the terrestrials all the main facts which the Atalantans had found out about the solar system.

Mercury and the earth were, of course, the planets best known to them, and he made the sage remark that astronomers would do better to put up with the trouble of the sunlight and study Mercury as a morning star rather than face what he considered to be the far greater difficulties of going to the frozen hemisphere and looking at it so low down on the horizon.

“Do you think Mercury is inhabited?” asked Radcliffe.

“Certainly not,” answered Andron. “Mercury is only a repetition of our own planet with polar terrors on one side and a sun about three times larger than our sun. All our vegetation would be withered, and there would be but half the space which we have on which it could grow. Even this presupposes that its surface is all land, whereas it is probably a sea of fire and molten metal.”

After this learned talk about the stars, to which Carmichael added the surprising news that there were two planets beyond the orbit of Saturn which the Atalantans had not discovered, the converse took a more religious turn. Andron and his wife Ayacatil were delighted to have given to them a copy in manuscript of St. Luke’s Gospel and the Acts. Andron promised that many copies should be circulated in the island. He asked Radcliffe a rather remarkable question: if the abominations committed upon the earth were wholly and entirely the work of mankind, or whether there were occult powers of evil acting upon them from without? When Radcliffe spoke of the teaching of Christianity upon this dark subject, Andron and Ayacatil both expressed the opinion that it was no use to deny that the Atalantans were more free from crimes of violence and mere insensate wickedness--in fact, that it was hardly possible to find people who ever did wickedness that was contrary to their own interests. Sins there were, and plenty, in Atalanta, but there was always a reason for them; there was nothing extravagant or maniacal, nothing uncontrolled or uncontrollable.

“Surely then,” said Radcliffe, “as Atalanta has been left all these ages to work out its destiny on the side of good, so likewise it has been left unmolested on the side of the powers of evil. I do not believe there are such powers in this planet. This would account for the whole course of divine treatment which Providence has adopted towards it.”

“This appears to me very just reasoning,” said Ayacatil; “we breathe a purer atmosphere in this planet, and therefore a large number of spiritual and moral maladies are cut off.”

“But that makes us wholly responsible for those that remain,” remarked Mexitli. “However, I mean to look facts in the face and study all that God has taught the other planet, and see what light the teaching can throw upon this.”

The Professor was about to lead the discussion back to the heavenly bodies, when Abercromby asked if they might enjoy some more of the national poetry of Atalanta and its melodies.

Ayacatil pressed Mexitli to honour them with an example of her own artistic powers.

The princess consented, and sang some stanzas of the grand lyric--

“HOW KERAUNION DIED”

Sing me a tale of the days gone by,
Of the days that were brave and bold,
Ere the minstrel charmed with his minstrelsy,
But love wrought deeds untold;
When to love and to succour was all our pride,--
In the days when King Keraunion died.

The clouds had gathered all over the hills,
And Asti had hidden His glorious face,
The rain mist had flowed o’er the trembling rills,
And faster the clouds did race
To the trysting-place whither their squadrons ride,
On the night when King Keraunion died!

A subject had served him right faithful and true,
Had stood ’mid the trustiest round his throne,
And the sky of the monarch was cloudless and blue,
And all Atalanta he called his own.
Ah! how can _we_ tell how events shall betide
When we hear of the way that Keraunion died?

For the sky of the subject was draped in gloom,
And his head was bowed in a sore distress,
And life had become as the fearsome tomb,
A drear and a pitiless wilderness.
His only child had strayed from his side
On the mountain path where Keraunion died.

The King set forth alone. He wrought
’Mid the gathering darkness the truant to seek.
A courtier the tidings of anguish brought,
And he gave the advice of the timid and weak:
“For what would become of the land,” he cried,
“If boldness he urged, and Keraunion died?”

The King spurned the counsel, and threaded his way.
Unconscious of pain, and of peril sore,
He came to the place where the maiden lay,
And safe to the summit her frail form bore.
Now who would have thought in that moment of pride
That the hour was come when Keraunion died?

A bird of prey, with ravenous beak,
Struck at the child brought back to life;
But there, on the edge of that yawning deep,
The rescuer fought it in doubtful strife.
So the maid sped swift to her father’s side,
But the fight was over--Keraunion died.

The King fought on with fast ebbing life,
Driven to the verge of the beetling rock;
The monster watched every turn of the strife,
And drove in his last relentless shock.
From the dizzy height of the mountain side
Keraunion was hurled--and Keraunion died.

A murmur of admiration pervaded the company.

“Well, let us adjourn to the lawn,” said the royal songstress, “and have a little more talk upon serious subjects. We are all in the mood, I fancy.”