CHAPTER XIV
THE VOYAGE TO TIRRALARIA

I ASKED him to sail round the bluff and communicate with my yacht. But he would not hear of it. He said that this would endanger the safety of all, for the Aleofanian king would see at once how elaborate had been the conspiracy and how treacherous we had been, and he would take every means to frustrate our departure, or, if we got safely off, to avenge the insult. I had to accept his reasons, for I was in his power. But I was sure that there were others; he was afraid that if I got on board my own ship, Blastemo would persuade me to go off with him to Broolyi; on the other hand, if he secured me for his island, my fireship would soon be in Tirralaria too.

I found out afterwards from my sailors that the king had fallen into great consternation at the firing of the guns, especially when the boats with his guards made off towards the shore. One of the shot had opportunely ploughed up the sea not far from their station and had evidently filled them with panic. My men knew that Garrulesi was waiting for me on the other side of the point, and they kept firing towards the beach till they thought that I should be on board. Then, in order to quiet the fears of the king, they put him and his boy into the yawl, and pulled him on shore. In his excitement he had forgotten all about Blastemo, and, before he had regained the upper reaches of the road and joined his troops, the yacht had lifted anchor, picked up her boat, and steamed out to sea. They saw my signal on board the falla, and knew that I was safe. So they followed my instructions and made for Broolyi, whilst the wind bore us in the opposite direction.

But the shadows thickened, and before night fell we had run into the shelter of some high land and anchored. The men hung a dirty guttering lamp in the main room of the high poop, and by its light I could see how slovenly and foul was the whole cabin. It smelt of fish-oil and of unnumbered meals past. The floor was littered with garbage, so that I had to clear a path through it to prevent slipping. I could find no convenient ledge to sit on that was not embossed with grease and oil. I was glad to reach the night air again, for it at least helped to deodorise the deck. I got them to hang me a hammock in the shrouds, resolved to keep out of the cabin as long as I could.

I was awakened at early dawn by the movements of the seamen, and through the grey light I saw that we were lying off the bleak, rocky shore of an islet. We hoisted sail and were off before a whistling wind that sang violence to come. They had considerable skill in handling the falla, and we left a long scar behind us across the crests of the emulous waves. Swift though the current and surge ran with us, we outstripped them, rising like a sea-bird to the full impulse of the wind. I could tell at a glance that the ancestors of these seamen had been accustomed to rough waters through countless ages.

My host came on deck after we were fully under way and at once joined me. He launched again into eulogies of the socialistic community. I was at the mercy of his eloquence, and resigned myself to my fate. Yet before the voyage closed and we ran into port I was rewarded for my talent of listening. He got weary of tempting my admiration by his praises, and soon slipped into what looked like fact. He gave me a picturesque description of the island when its rude outline began to sierra the horizon. There were miles and miles of lawns and orchards that terraced the lowlands from the lapping water on the beach to the roots of the mountains that I saw dim white against the sky rim. Gleaming rivers streaked the meadows with their silver, or hid beneath the blossoming or fruiting trees. Here and there they swelled into sylvan lakes whose surface was spidered into moving gossamer by flocks of tame sea-birds and by canvas bent on pleasure and ease. Towering above the tallest trees stood vast temples that seemed in their shining marbles to outstrip the snowy giants that were every hour revealing to me more and more of their stupendous proportions.

I piloted him by judicious admiration and questions into a description of their faith. It seemed to be a polytheism that was practically a pantheism. Every spirit that existed in the universe apart from body was equal to every other spirit. As soon as a man died his soul became a god, as worthy of worship as any other god that had existed from the beginning. Through the whole of space, and even permeating matter invisibly, impalpably, gods lived and moved and had their being. They needed no sustenance, no addition of energy, no extension of space to live in. The universe was full of them, immortal generators of other spirits, other gods. It was indeed an Olympus that was so united, so free from all jealousy and enmity that it formed but one god, just as the living cells of the human body, though each having its own individuality, made but one human life. And there was still infinity to fill. Worlds died every hour, having fulfilled their purpose of producing all the divine life whereof they were capable. Every hour worlds were born evolving energy and at last life, which rose by stages up to the human that dying might be divine. The stellar system is but a great god-factory. Not an atom that lives is wasted. Everything that comes into existence rises up and into the nobly human; then the physical sequence ceases and the divine begins. Death deifies all men; evil falls away from them with their bodies; and, winged through the vault, the souls flit, rid of passion and whatsoever clogs pure thought. They have no desire to materialise again; they have no desires at all. They can interpenetrate and unite and disunite without the sense of disunion. They are one with existence that is not bound to what is matter or has senses. They make the final all; and yet this all increases every moment with transcendent growth. Its one imperfection is that it cannot fill the whole of space; its one aspiration is to colonise infinity. Life is too poor to satisfy it. It must grow for ever and for ever through new systems and oceans of worlds that evolve myriads of new gods ready to people the still unmastered regions beyond its ken. Its energy is not diminished by the stupendous labour at the unceasing birth of worlds. Every new effort means increased possibility of energy. It is of the nature of pure spirit to develop its potence of energy by energising. Once freed of cumbering matter, its life grows fuller and freer the more it operates on the atoms of the ether to raise them nearer and nearer to its own nature and being. Nor can it work except through this laborious ascent; this is the only hierarchy of life, the only altar-stairs in the universe, whereon being of lower grade clambers up to godhead. Once the altar is reached there is nothing but equality. There is only imperfection and perfection in existence. Of imperfection there are as many gradations as there are kinds of being; in perfection or godhead there is no differentiation; there degree, class, distinction cease. For all gods are one in the all. In the stage just precedent to godhead, in humanity, gradation has begun to vanish. It is only the adulterate nature that still keeps distinction. The higher the range of the men the less the difference between them; and at last death obliterates it; they are perfect in freedom from the long-obstructive matter, perfect in godhead, united to the all.