"I see what I must do," he said. "I can take only four persons belonging to any one family. Two of them may be children—a man, his wife, and two children—no more."
"But that will be very hard lines for them—" began Joseph Smith.
"Hard lines!" Cosmo broke in. "Do you think it is easy lines for me? Good Heavens, man! I am forced to this decision. It rends my heart to think of it, but I can't avoid the responsibility."
Smith dropped his eyes, and Cosmo resumed his reflections. In a little while he spoke again:
"Another thing that I must fix is an age limit. But that will have to be subject to certain exceptions. Very aged persons in general will not do—they could not survive the long voyage, and only in the rare instances where their experience of life might be valuable would they serve any good purpose in reëstablishing the race. Children are indispensable—but they must not be too young—infants in arms would not do at all. Oh, this is sorry work! But I must harden my heart."
Joseph Smith looked at his chief, and felt a twinge of sympathy, tempered by admiration, for he saw clearly the terrible contest in his friend's mind and appreciated the heroic nature of the decision to which the inexorable logic of facts had driven it.
Cosmo Versál was again silent for a long time. Finally he appeared to throw off the incubus, and, with a return of his ordinary decisiveness, exclaimed:
"Enough. I have settled the general principle. Now to the choice."
Then, closing his eyes, as if to assist his memory, he ran over a list of names well known in the world of science, and Smith set them down in a long row under the name of "Abiel Pludder," with which he had begun.
At last Cosmo Versál ceased his dictation.