Riallaro: The Archipelago of Exiles

by Godfrey Sweven

“The modernists smile at these preparations and precautions, and declare that nothing of these manifest themselves, but only the shadow of the watcher himself in some passing starlit or moonlit space. They know that the true modern spirit cares for none of these things; he has been brought up in the midst of the best medical science, and avoids draughty old buildings as bad for colds and rheumatism and full of the microbes of countless diseases; he has advanced with the ages, and asks for nothing better than the simplest modern appliances; he has learned, as a modern should, telegraphy and telepathy, and all he needs is a table to rap on, or a planchette or slate to write on; that is his whole outfit, as becomes an occupant of an immaterial world; he has the electricity in his own system to work the thing; but if he has got to materialise, he does like the lights turned down; for modern gas and oil lamps are very trying for a poor old spirit’s eyes, that have been accustomed to the dim, ethereal spaces. It is all right when he can remain unseen and merely let his mind out in rap language, though that is a rather slow way of communication for beings that move and act as quickly as thought; but to doff his old habits and his invisible form makes a ghost as shy as for a human being to appear naked in broad daylight. It is no wonder that spirits insist that the lights be down, when they are asked to appear to the eyes of the initiated. As for the worldly and sceptical, they will never have the privilege of seeing anyone or even hearing anyone from the world of spirits till they abandon their scoffing, faithless ways. Faith is a prime essential of all communion with the immaterial world. The gross senses of the worldling can never see or hear what his more refined neighbours catch from the spirit-sphere. It is only Spectralia that ghosts will ever favour with their countenance. Now and again they appear to men and women of peculiar natures in other islands in order to have them deported to their favourite isle; they are heard of no more after the exile, having followed their clients. But, if those they address lose faith in them and remain with their fellow-countrymen, the ghosts cease to appear to them.

Even the modernists acknowledge that spirits have but limited means of communication; they prefer two or three methods and will have no others. A story is told over the archipelago of a Swoonarian inventor who had noticed this and had thought out plans for opening a clear highway into the spirit-world. One was to erect a vacuum tube up through the atmosphere of the earth and to catch the ghosts in gossamer nets at the bottom of it as they were sucked down. Another was to have a megaphone with an enormous mouth stretching above the clouds and its terrestrial end in a vast magnifying hall that would turn the poor ghost whispers into clear, intelligible sounds. A third was to utilise their rapping propensities; he proposed to have a great musical instrument with keys placed in position underneath their favourite tables, where the spirits loved to rap out their answers to questions; a little training would soon develop in them the power of earthly harmony, and, as they struck the keys, the Spectralians would have the most divine ghost music. A modification of this would provide a method for spirits to express applause when they approved of earthly performers and speakers; a series of fans or clapboards were to work round a freely moving axle and to come in contact with the soft, flat surface as they spun round, so that they would produce a sound like the clapping of hands; as the spirits rapped on the keyboard, the vanes whirled round, and the effect of tumultuous applause was produced. Still another modification was intended to use spirit force for human purposes; their rapping power was to be concentrated on engines that would drives mills and looms and the other machines of Spectralian factories. He had a great windmill too that was to be blown round by the breath of spirits; and an automatic spirit reporter that would record whatever was done or said in spirit-land. Another line his inventions took was to provide bodies that would invite wandering souls into them. A third set of inventions was intended to relieve the over-population of the Spectralian atmosphere; he was convinced that the region was uncomfortably crowded, because all the ghosts of the archipelago flocked thither, and there were no sanitary arrangements for making ghost life endurable; so he proposed by one of his new machines to take a census of the spirits in and around Spectralia, and then to send his automatic spirit-emigration Propaganda amongst them in order to induce large numbers of them to seek other and more wholesome spheres.

“After long years of work on these, he came across a wealthy and enthusiastic Spectralian, whom he convinced of the fortune that lay in his machines. The two shipped the cargo of notions and landed safely in Spectralia. But before they could be put out on the market there was a ghost riot one night; what were the poor spirits to do for a living if all their functions were to be appropriated or concentrated by these vile inventions? Half of them would be thrown out of the employment they had been accustomed to, and how were they to learn all these new-fangled notions? It was too much for ghost nature to bear, and the machinery was smashed to pieces in a single night; and the spirits formed themselves into a trades-union for keeping such agitators and inventors far from the shores of Spectralia; it was said that the Swoonarian and his patron fled before the indignation of the mob of ghosts that pursued them, and the last that was seen of them they were on their knees uttering mad cries of alternate prayer and threat to their unseen tormentors.

“Another story told the adventures of a missionary from Aleofane, who was sent to convert Spectralians to the true faith. After long and enthusiastic labour in preaching and praying he found on examination that he was no further forward than when he landed. The Spectralians were as unconvinced as before; and on inquiry he was told that as long as the spirits were unconverted their clients would adhere to their old faith. So the missionary set himself to the work of converting the ghosts, promising himself that, this done, the whole island would go over to his religion. At first they could not understand a word that he said; and he learned their rap language. Then they refused to listen patiently to his homilies and litanies; he had no sooner called them up and launched into his eloquence than they had dispersed like leaves before a gale. He tried to get at the bottom of this universal reluctance on their part to hear him out; and he discovered that they were a good deal more primitive than savages or children; their education had been completely neglected; they could never tell anybody anything that was not known to everybody before; they indulged in the dreariest platitudes and the most obvious truisms, and they thought that it was more than spirit could bear to hear lengthy sermons on the obvious poured broadside into them. He assumed that his truths were too high for them to understand, and never realised that he was doing nothing more than pouring water into the ocean. It was true that their education had been wretchedly neglected; the most elementary truths of science were unknown to them. He set himself first to their tuition in the use of reason before attempting to convert them again. Alas! his task was an endless one. As with savages, after teaching any simple and primal principle, he found he had to begin teaching it to them over again. He did not weary of his burden; for he knew that he had the great prize before him of converting a whole nation. He grew a white-haired old man before he could get them beyond such elementary truths as two and two are four, and he died at his task, a martyr to the platitudinarianism of spirits.

“We were steaming along under the lee of Spectralia, the night fast lowering upon us, as Blastemo held us spellbound by these stories. A crash and a quiver of the ship cut short his narrative, and we rushed on deck. The engines stopped, and peering over the side in the struggling moonlight we could see one or two dark objects rise and fall on the gleaming wake. We lowered a boat, and soon had two dripping figures upon the deck. We anchored and attended to their necessities; and by the morning they had so far recovered as to be able to give an account of themselves.

“They were the superintendents or presidents of the Spectralian ghost markets; so Blastemo interpreted for us. There had been reported to them, as the sun set, a strange appearance on the horizon. It had become too dim for them to make it out by the time they had reached the beach; but as its mass of lights grew in size and brilliancy and a singular throb seemed to come through the air from it, they could form no other conclusion than that it was an influx of emigrants from the more distant regions of spirits. As it approached, they could see it move on the face of the waters, and they knew that it was a ghost ship; for they could perceive dark flights of spirits gleam in its lights and hurry it on as they spun through the night behind it, and they could hear the multitudinous beat of their wings in the air. None but they were officially authorised to welcome ghostly immigrants into the island; it was their duty to meet the spectral fleet before it touched the land, and they rushed for fallas, as they seemed to see it about to pass their island. From a promontory that would most easily intercept it they swung their paddles towards it; and their hearts were gladdened as they found themselves right across the track it was making. The next they knew was that they were floundering in the water and it had passed them. They shouted; but, faint as they were, they thought that their cries would make little impression. The elfin ship stopped, however; the throb of the winged host ceased; and they were hoisted by the strange spirits on board.

“We asked them what they wanted to do with the new arrival of ghosts when they got them. The answer came; they would dispose of them in the market of souls. Each division of the people, the antiques and the moderns, had a market of its own, and that was why the two officials rushed, each to his own boat, to secure the cargo of ghosts, and why each ventured into such danger to secure his prize. They did not know for certain whether the new arrivals were spirits of the olden time or modern spirits; but each had good reason to think that they were ghosts of his own special affinity. The man of the dead-soul market was pretty sure that the cargo was for him; for none but ancient spirits would arrive at midnight with such appalling sounds, in such sable robes, and with such flash of lightnings. The president of the living-soul market was as sure that they were for him; for only modern ghosts could arrive in such novel circumstances, and in all the panoply of modern science. It was with difficulty that we could keep the two from blows; they wrangled furiously, and hurled insult and vituperation at each other with manifest effect. At last we had to get them into separate compartments that they might not do each other bodily harm.

“Alone with us each calmed down into comparative tranquillity, and we were able to get a fair and rational account of the two markets out of the chaos of their mutual misrepresentation. After collating notes of the scene with each we came to the conclusion that the two markets were at opposite ends of the island, and that they belonged to the two great sects of the people, the antiques and the modernists. At stated times there were great ghost fairs to which the inhabitants crowded that they might be able to exchange familiars or traffic the spirit that had become too commonplace to them for one that might give them more exquisite shocks of supernatural surprise and alarm.

“The goblin-shop, as the modernist called the market of dead souls, was evidently the place where ghosts of the olden type were bought and sold. It was situated, like the catacombs, underground, and above it lay old graveyards, ancient ruins, castles, chapels, and shrines where the goods traded in might squeak and gibber and disport themselves for the edification of the purchasing public; these dilapidated old cages were a kind of ghost menagerie, or, as the modernist sneered, the goblin kennels; in them the spirits were penned during the ghost fairs, and the intending purchasers wandered round and listened to the whistling, moaning winds through the crevices and tried to get the sensation of being startled by the ghost rustle and speech or by the apparitions that came and went within the dark pens. The traffickers went in twos and threes around; for they dared not trust themselves alone in the presence of these uneasy supernatural beings. Every one of these strange creatures had either committed murder or suicide or been present at such a deed; nor could he ever find rest night or day. It was only in the deepest darkness that he was able to make himself manifest to his clients; as soon as the first streak of dawn touched the horizon he vanished like a dream, and not even the faintest smell of sulphur remained during the day where he had paced by night.

“The antiquist expressed the greatest scorn of the new-fangled rubbish traded off on poor humanity in the demon pigsty, as he usually called the market of living souls. But the modernist waxed eloquent on the miracles wrought by the spirits bought in his institution. His goods were not the frequenters of tombs or mouldy fragments of buildings; they were willing to talk to their clients by the light of day and in the most comfortable surroundings; they were human and humane in every respect; they liked the society of living men and women, especially if these were commonplace and preferred information on topics that had no mystery about them; they delighted in communications on the obvious, and would rather talk to clients who wanted to hear of what they knew already; they did not care for tombs and ghostly surroundings; though, if people insisted on getting a sight of them, they preferred a dim light; they were shy; for they were unable to procure in spirit-land the phantasms of the garments that they had worn upon earth to clothe their nakedness. Still better, they sold in their market many a phantasm of the living which could tell its clients their own thoughts, and communicate facts that they were certain to find out by common observation within a few minutes or hours. They sold dream-stuff that would supply the sleeping client with warnings as to the future so that when the future arrived he would recognise it. In their market they had practitioners who could draw souls like teeth, and, after polishing them clean of diseases, put them back again. They had others, each of whom could send his detachable soul down the throat of a patient like a chimney-sweep, and, after cleaning the system, draw it back again. There was not a disease in man but had its origin in the imagination or detachable soul; and what was the use of medicine or surgery, when all a man had to do in order to be cured was to get this free soul taken out of him and sent to the practitioners in the market or to borrow the free soul of a practitioner for a few hours or days as the case might need? He could go on for years, if we liked, telling us the miracles and wonders done by their spirit-therapeutics in their market of living souls. No less marvellous was the consolation afforded to the bereaved when they were able to come and converse with the souls of the departed. For a small fee they could call up any spirit they pleased, and get it to write on slates or give in rap language answers to any questions they might ask, provided the questions did not touch on its actual state or destiny and related to facts well known to all present. The spirits they dealt in would give no satisfaction to the profanely curious or impertinent.