CHAPTER XIII
Love and Liberty
We soon heard the swarming crowds returning, and before long saw the flat wagons, with the straining goats drawing them, and softly luminous from the radium bulbs held in wickerwork cages, and on them the governors, much agitated and confused. It was really a rout. Panic had seized the people, the guards were in disorder, and they failed to repel the surging masses that rolled up against the rocking chariots. It was a straggling, in some sections a struggling, cortege, and the dominant purpose was to get under cover, for the blackness deepened, the very last glimpses of light had vanished, and a night of storm and wind with a cold rain had blotted out the smiling peacefulness of Radiumopolis.
Fortunately, the construction of the houses was excellent and, except as the wind drove rain through or past the crevices of the board or leathern insertions, their interiors were probably quite dry in storms. The rooms at the Capitol were completely so.
And now the running groups, the populace, the guards, officials hastening variously on their many ways could be heard tramping and surging along, with only occasional ejaculations of impatience or alarm, but all in an evident race and retreat.
I did not wait long with my friends. I knew Ziliah was with them—with one. I clutched my intolerable load closer, I sprang to the eastern terrace, now deserted, and rushed down, suddenly seized with the thought of destroying the infernal machines I carried. It was a great loss to science no doubt, but at the moment I felt convinced that once these preposterous weapons were lost to the little doctors, we were safe. I cried in my heart, “Our guns against everything.”
So on I flew, and straight out into the serpent pasture, now and again slipping on some coiled or gliding snake to where I knew that well hole lay which marked the departing kick of the celestial visitor who had taught Radiumopolis the trick of making gold. It was a deep hole and it was full of water. I reached it. I opened my tunic and from it the bundle of pestiferous little arsenals of magic tumbled, and splashed in the water—and were gone. The pack that fell off Christian’s back and rolled backward into the sepulchre could not have been gotten rid of with more satisfaction to that tired pilgrim than I freed myself of those hateful little tubes. Of course afterwards the Professor was dreadfully upset about it. He deplored the “loss to science.” “Perhaps,” retorted Hopkins, “but—we count too.”
I soon returned to the others and found them—minus Ziliah, who had been persuaded to retire to her boudoir—nestling against the corner of the Capitol where there was less wind and rain, enjoying the home gathering of the Sanhedrin, its wives and children, relatives, attendants, and the police.
“My!” gurgled Hopkins under his breath, “such a coop of hens! And the cackling! What’s hard to understand is how such poultry govern this land, and how they have the nerve to keep up this detestable religion with its snakes and its crocodiles; and yet—blame—me—they certainly are on the inside of a good many things, and they surely are on a Gold Basis, and some of our best people wouldn’t mind swapping all they know, for just that one particular bit of information which will turn a leaden pot into a gold one.”
“We must know how, too,” grumbled Goritz.