"I am a very old man, and though I have retained my powers of mind and body in a degree that is unusual in Meleager, whose denizens fade as they mature earlier than do those of the Earth, the inevitable call has sounded at last, and in my case more swiftly and suddenly than I could have wished. For many months past I have been deeply distressed on your behalf, my son. I have been rent and vexed by the rival claims of duty towards my office and of my pity and affection towards yourself. Or rather, I have been speculating with ceaseless anxiety as to where my real duty lay. As a councillor of the hierarchy of Meleager and a keeper of The Secret I am impelled to abandon you to your fate, be what it may; yet as one who is about to say farewell to all things in this existence, I feel I cannot, I must not depart thus without lifting from you the cloud of subtlety and intrigue wherewith your young life is overshadowed. I have endured hideous visions upon my bed; I have heard your voice of reproach and pictured your final struggle; I have communed with my own soul in perfect frankness; and as the result of this spiritual conflict, involving so many diverse arguments, I am here to-day to warn you."
Again the old man extended his wasted arms towards me and embraced me with a renewed burst of tenderness. Then he motioned to me to resume my seat.
"I must hasten to divulge what is lying like a load upon my heart, for my span of life can now but be reckoned by hours, not days. In the first place you have been grievously, wilfully deceived by our envoy on Earth and also by myself (though herein I have been merely following the normal trend of our polity) in one most important matter. For you have been permitted, even encouraged, to believe that your reign here in Meleager can be indefinitely prolonged, provided you do not set yourself to withstand or embarrass the ruling hierarchy of this planet. Only theoretically is this true. It is a fact, I admit, that our kings can be rejuvenated over and over again, and by this means be enabled to survive generation after generation of Meleagrians—but this never happens in reality. Not a few monarchs have these aged eyes of mine witnessed in Meleager, and I have heard tell of others, but not one of these has attained to so much as two lustres of regnant power in the star to which they had been translated under circumstances similar to your own. It is true our kings have often brought premature and well-deserved disaster on their own heads, but of such I am not now thinking. I am speaking of our hierarchy who are by no means immaculate, and whose intrigues and jealousy will not permit any monarch to escape his predetermined end, no matter how conspicuous his merits. Not that all our members are tainted with this disease of treachery, that is far from being the case; but in every executive body so strong is the spirit of self-interest that no scruples will stand in the way of preserving power, from whatsoever cause it is once threatened. Men are mostly evil, as your great Italian thinker, Nicholas Machiavelli, was bold enough to proclaim, and their guides or politicians are crafty animals who suck advantage from every weakness of humanity. Such being the inevitable state of things politic, our poor monarchs are placed in a hopeless dilemma, whereby they are doomed to failure, and for the following reasons. If they avoid the snare of politics, they grow vicious or oppressive of the populace, so that they lose the general esteem, and the watching hierarchy is swift to annex this alienated favour and to transfer it to its own body by ridding Meleager of an obnoxious semi-divine King. Again, it has happened on not a few occasions that the King has set to combine with the subservient populace against the real ruling caste. I myself have seen these palace courts and halls slippery with the blood of slaves and soldiers who have sought at the royal bidding to overthrow the executive council, and have themselves been overwhelmed and massacred in the attempt. Or else, commonest and most dreaded event of all that we prepare to circumvent, our monarch will seek to found a dynasty. This is a danger we are compelled to nip in the bud by eliminating the erring sovereign rather than by destroying the victim or tool of his designs. But you yourself belong to none of these categories of undesirable rulers—the ambitious, the despotic, the brutal, the licentious, the knavish; and it is for this very distinction that I now have come hither to inform you of certain things.
"You alone of all the earth-rapt monarchs of Meleager that ever I have known or heard of have pursued an even tenor of deportment, holding yourself strictly aloof from the besetting snares of popular adulation and of selfish indolence. You have never strained to encroach on the prerogative of the hierarchy, yet you have openly and boldly clung to such shreds of power as our constitution legally permits you to exercise. You have never stooped to flatter the priestly caste; although you have given proof again and again that you clearly understand and appreciate the intertwining nature of the bonds that unite the offices of King and council. You have shown yourself affable and gracious to our nobility; kindly and sympathetic to the people without any ulterior object in your behaviour. You have forborne to break our laws with regard to dalliance with women, for in your case no spy has as yet reported any such dereliction on your part. You have worked well, within the limits assigned to you, to assist the well-being of the community; and it is also evident that you are a cordial upholder of our fundamental theory that human happiness rather than human progress offers the truest mark for statesmanship, and that those who enjoy the sweets of office and power must alone taste of the bitter punishment entailed by their own failure or disloyalty. In my eyes, therefore, you are the ideal King; and yet, and yet, you will not survive to behold the complement of the half score of years of sovereignty, which has only once been attained hitherto in the whole course of Meleagrian annals. Your very virtues of self-restraint and implicit honour have only contrived to arouse in its direst shape that spectre of suspicion which is the guiding genius of our state craft. In other words, even a good King of Meleager is likewise foredoomed, whatever struggles and sacrifices he may make to gain and hold the approval of his virtual masters.
"To divert my warning now from the general to the particular, I must tell you that on my departure hence to the Hereafter, every signal points clearly to the approaching cessation of your reign. Unless I am gravely mistaken, the councillor who is marked out to succeed me as Arch-priest leads our most truculent faction, and under his auspices no long period will elapse before the order will go forth for a change of monarch. Doubtless not a few voices will be raised in your behalf, for you have grown dear to many of us; but I feel convinced such pleading will not prevail. By this time you must, with your acquisitive mind, have guessed at the fate which awaits yourself, the fate that has engulfed so many of your predecessors, the Fountain of Rejuvenation. The sustaining ropes will be cut during your plunge therein, so that the fierce undercurrent may draw you into the bowels of the underworld. Thus will you cease to reign, as we phrase it with euphemistic delicacy. Should you perchance be cunning enough to elude this mode of execution, rest assured there are other means in plenty equally awful and drastic, once the fiat of your removal has been definitely pronounced. My son, you must prepare to meet your fate, for though I still hope some unexpected turn of Fortune's wheel may yet operate for your preservation, in my opinion your doom is already imminent. But one ray of comfort, or rather one spell of delay, I am able to promise you. By our immutable laws the newly elected Arch-priest, who guards the rites and mysteries of that dreadful fountain, is compelled to retain in office the two attendant councillors who assist in carrying out the process of the lustration. Thus on the first occasion of this ceremony under my successor you will be absolutely safe, for I have obtained the most solemn assurances to this effect from the two colleagues who have lately served me in this capacity. But this arrangement will only affect the next ceremony, for thenceforth the new Arch-priest is empowered to select assistants of his own, and naturally he will choose his own creatures for the required purpose. Still, such a respite will afford you some breathing-space for preparation and self-communing, as it will prolong your existence for the space of a further half-year. Perhaps fresh developments may arise within that span of time—who knows?
"One thing I implore of you, and I know I do not ask in vain. Do not stir up strife in our planet, as other kings have done before you. Your chance of success is almost hopeless, as no doubt you already realise, knowing the intensity of the suspicion wherewith every movement on your part is regarded and provided for. Because you are destined to die, die alone, and forbear to drag a number of innocent persons along with you to your doom. You have performed your manifest duty for the past seven years with a steadfast beneficence that is worthy of your alleged father, the Sun; and remember, it is the fulfilment of duty alone that counts in the future life of the Hereafter, whose prospective blessings will eventually be yours."
I cannot describe the tender and earnest manner of the dying man's discourse, terrible though its disclosures were to myself. Even the final piece of advice, platitude of every creed and clime though it was, seemed to come as a help and a spur to me at this critical juncture. After all, what is a platitude but the untimely expression of some great basic truth? And here, from the venerable hierophant, who from a strict sense of duty had left his sick-bed to come hither and instruct me, the words seemed to possess a peculiar meaning and value; his simple appeal to my own sense of rectitude had all the force of a profound thought extracted from a world of thinking. I could only press the hot, dry, bony hand, as I shrouded my head in the folds of my royal mantle in a vain endeavour to subdue a fresh bout of weeping.
"And now," continued my companion, making an effort to rise, "I must depart with my blessing upon you. Long may you be spared to rule in Meleager; and if not so, then we shall meet in due sequence within that narthex of silence and shadows which forms the vestibule to the temple of the Hereafter."
Once more he embraced me long and lovingly, after which he bade me strike the bell reposing on the table. At his request too I passed to the farthest end of the balcony, so as to keep my face averted from the little group of attendants who now assisted the dying man to his litter. I could hear the shuffling of feet and whispering of voices involved in the task of transporting my old friend, whilst with swimming eyes I gazed blankly at the white cheerful city, the cool greenery of the palace gardens and the flashing liquid mirror of the haven of Tamarida. Nor did I budge from my stiff, comfortless pose till at length I felt a light touch on the shoulder, the respectful touch of a privileged dependent. On turning my eyes, still red and swollen with my lately shed tears, they met the honest, inquiring face of Hiridia, who was regarding me reproachfully, as though rebuking me in silence for such an unseemly lack of control. I made the necessary attempt in the form of a wan smile and a request for a cup of wine; for a true public ruler must exhibit no private sorrow. Was it not the magnificent Giovanni dei Medici, Pope Leo the Tenth, who was reprimanded by his punctilious chamberlain for falling to tears openly on the news of the death of his favourite brother, "seeing that the Roman pontiff was a demi-god and not a man, and must therefore display a serene and smiling countenance on all occasions to the people"? It was in this spirit then that I accepted Hiridia's tacit reproof; sometimes the will of man imposes itself on the weakness of the gods.
II