There was a great statesman at the helm of affairs, the ablest monarch that had ever been selected by the council of wise warriors. He saw his opportunity. He happened to have one of the most original and inventive engineers as his right-hand man for the manufacture and superintendence of war material. This latter had landed on the shores of Broolyi they knew not whence. In these islands they ask no questions but accept what the gods send them. The two together elaborated the existing religious system. The dogma that the divine influence was altogether irrespective of the channel or priest had thoroughly soaked into the natures of the worshippers from the sermons of the preachers; and it was easy to turn the flank of the doctrine by showing that automatic priests would have least effect of all upon the religious elements that came through them. They would be completely neutral like the air or the ether through which the gods influenced the minds of men.
There was some talk of rebellion when the system was changed; but most of the priests were too manifestly disreputable or characterless to bring much influence to bear. They were banished to the islands that were occupied by the non-moral religionists, and were never heard of more. The women were only too glad to see the services conducted in order and decency, whilst the men saw with pleasure the rotten finances taken up by the state. It was one of the most peaceful and natural changes that ever occurred; and now the temples were filled with men as well as women. The music was splendid, the ceremonies solemn, the discourses worth listening to. It cost far less. It was absolutely controlled by the state, and all throughout the island had the same spiritual fare.
I suggested to Blastemo that there was surely great monotony in having the same thing year in, year out, every festival. He laughed at my simplicity. The monarch and the engineer had fully provided for that feature of human nature which makes it weary of mere repetition. The finest imaginations of the country were employed in writing discourses; the best musicians spent most of their time in composing the hymns and songs; the finest theatrical talent and the most devout minds combined to make new ceremonies and services. That was the reason there was not standing room in most of the temples of the country. Everything was under the eye of the king and his wise warriors. It was one of the most effective disciplines that ever state had had in its hands; the state-organised church of Aleofane was not to be compared to it. The souls of the community were regimented like their bodies.
I was silenced; but any doubt of the efficacy of the institution was not dissipated when I heard that it was still comparatively new. The monarch had not long since died, and the engineer was still living. It had still to be tested by time, and the attraction of novelty had not yet worn off. Yet I had to acknowledge that it was a most effective method of ridding a state church of irregularities and keeping a strong hand over the minds of the community. Whether it would allow the civilisation to advance was another question. Originality would soon be a thing inconceivable in the island, if it were not already completely dead. Peace in the spiritual world had been reached, but at the expense of all new thought or individuality of character.
When I heard that the inventor of this automatic worship was still alive, I felt eager to see him, certain as I was that he must be a man of remarkable powers; but I found great difficulty in getting Blastemo or anyone else to tell me about him. Since the election of the new monarch, I ascertained by sundry hints, he had been in exile. Where he was imprisoned I could not find out. His great capacity and his ever-advancing thought had manifestly aroused the jealousy of the new occupant of the throne. Hence, I conjectured, it was that the new arts of war had grown abortive, promise though they once did to go far towards the ideal of absolute destructiveness which would lead to universal peace. I saw that he or someone else had introduced an explosive, which might, with improvements, have made as effective a means of war as European gunpowder. It had enabled the last king to batter down the fortress-mansions of his nobles in the country and drive them to settle round the court and abandon their continual little internecine wars. Under his successor, the makers of the explosive had lost its true secret; and the baronial castles were rebuilding, in spite of the threats of royal displeasure. This was the meaning of the battle we had seen before arriving at the harbour; two nobles were settling a quarrel in the old way, heedless of royal power or judicial courts. Whilst I was in Broolyi I saw hundreds of quarrels that were settled by duels. The Broolyians had no control over their tempers, and during the reign of the explosive they had given free play to them, as they knew that the result would be no risk of life, but only to property in settlement before the law-courts. It was like living over a gunpowder magazine, and I avoided intercourse with these spitfires. Indeed, it was difficult to conduct without hitch the commonest conversation with Blastemo, now he had returned to his native fire-damp of an atmosphere. Nothing but isolated residence in fortified keeps with miles of morass or mountain or forest between them could ever insure peace amongst such a people. To think that the name of their country was “Isle of Peace,” and that the great object of their worship was the god of peace!
One day I heard of another community off the farther coast of Broolyi; it was said to exist without government or institutions of any kind. My curiosity was excited, and, though on inquiry I found that it was the exile asylum of the archipelago for all who were plagued with the craze of anarchism, I resolved to see the island for myself. They could not laugh me out of my determination, and I at last procured a royal passport that would pass me over the intervening districts in safety. For the rest I was to look after myself if I ventured over the channel that lay between the islands. None of the Broolyians would ever risk their lives in that den of wild beasts, Kayoss. It had been chosen because of its proximity to the most warlike people in the archipelago; and, if any of the inhabitants attempted to leave it, the Broolyians were authorised to shoot them down. A garrison was regularly established over against it for the purpose.
I set out, glad to be free from the harassing ceremonial of a military, machine-like, and yet most capricious-tempered community; but it was a long and difficult journey, from castle to castle, over mountain and through forest, often delayed by some local imbroglio or the jealousy of neighbouring barons. Nothing but the magnificence of the scenery could compensate for the petty annoyances that retarded my passage. Everywhere I could see that the military commonweal was founded on slave labour. The ground was tilled and the operations of common life were conducted by men of a different race and climate from the oath-compelling fire-eaters that ruled the island; and over them stood overseers with whips to urge their industry. It was a sorry sight; and when I looked into the faces of the workers, I could distinguish the wreckage of nobler natures than were to be found in Broolyian breasts. The foreheads were larger, the skulls more capacious; the eyes were full of a shy melancholy that seemed to shrink from investigation; they had not the huge lower jaws of their masters, or the cavernous mouths, or the red hair. They were now but beasts of burden, and their limbs were muscular and heavy and their footsteps dragging and torpid; but there was romance lurking in the refined lineaments and the occasional grace that shone out here and there amongst them. Whence they had come and what was their fate I could not ascertain. That they were not natives I could see; and that it was inferiority of will rather than inferiority of intellect or imagination or civilisation that had led to their enslavement to the fiery-willed Broolyians I could easily conjecture from the ruins of their past that peeped out through the labour-clotted masks of their rustic or artisan life.
I had to disguise my interest in them in order to get through the country. Any sympathy or pity would have roused the savage wills of their masters and sacrificed my hopes of the future, if not myself, to the exaggerated Broolyian ideas of rebellion and the punishment it demanded. Whenever I could, I lay in the shelter of some tree or coppice, and watched the movements of these interesting relics of a subjugated civilisation. Perhaps I might be able to do something for them when I gained a higher platform of vantage.
