The new northland

by L. P. Gratacap

From that moment Ziliah was ours, every heart beat, every brain pulse was for us. She certainly played her father, but we had no intentions against his life, and it was just simply immolation for us all in his case, as the coterie would have sent us on the long road in a hurry, and then all this strange tale would never have entranced your ears. Ziliah, as the verdict of the world will pronounce, chose the better part. Her devotion led us into the light of deliverance.

The old record of the prophecy was brought to light. It actually was engraved on a gold tablet. That showed, sir, that the knowledge of transmutation was over a hundred years old in Krocker Land, for, as you will learn, there is no mining for gold in Krocker Land; that mother lode which the Professor predicted, as far as we know is a dream only. All the gold in Krocker Land comes from Radium Transmutation.

Ziliah saw the tablet, she heard it read; for that matter she read it herself (“A twentieth century woman and no mistake,” was Hopkins’ tribute to her sagacity), and now what I tell you, sir, will hardly be believed. It has such a fabulous fairy-like sound.

The prophecy read thus: The future King would fall from the sky, in the shape of a man dressed in rags, with hair red like blood, with a strange language on his tongue, and “he KILLS with THUNDER.”

That, sir, brought our guns and the Professor into the drama, and swept the stakes into our hands. You shall see.

The prophecy did mightily disturb the council. They convened in their state chamber, and argued it out circumstantially, and Ziliah, conveniently disposed for the revelations to be expected, listened. The upshot of their deliberations was that there was much difference of opinion, with a preponderant feeling that the Professor was a dangerous probability. Had we fallen from the sky, or just dropped out of the branches of the tree, and, if that was our first appearance how about the thefts? Yes—yes—the thefts, and the traces of our previous camps, and then the killing with thunder? There was some ill-natured derisive and weak giggling over this. Thunder indeed!

The upshot of it all was that Javan was deputed to keep an eye on us, and probably the best thing to do, taking a strictly conservative view of the matter was to— Ziliah didn’t catch this, but when I told her Hopkins, he winked assertively and drew the forefinger of his ring hand across his throat, and said nothing.

Anyhow the little elders came out from the conference, looking greatly satisfied, very benignant, and were happily garrulous. But the second event was the discovery of the disappearance of the tubes. It seemed that some recuperative effect was sought for in thus storing them in the metallic box in the subterranean chamber, but—WHAT? And whether other agents were present in the box will never be known, as indeed the mystery of those tubes is itself a closed chapter, unless forsooth the Professor elicits the information as to their fabrication, by reason of his present control of the scientific resources— But pardon me, I anticipate.

The tubes had been placed in the chest almost instantly after the re-entrance of the cortege into the Capitol. A literal translation of Ziliah’s remark as to the need of this would be that they were “dying out.”

You can imagine Javan’s despair, consternation, and amazement. Apparently there were no more of these stupefying inventions handy, and the Sanhedrin were really at their wits’ end. At this juncture Ziliah became a perfect demon of suggestion. Hopkins’ enthusiastic submission to her charms inflamed her with a sprightliness of mind that kept us busy too, and won our case. Ziliah knew that the citizens of Radiumopolis, which practically was Krocker Land, the outlying agricultural sections being little else than a diaspora of Radiumopolis itself, were not so loyally disposed towards the exclusive Areopagus on Capitol Hill, and that some shock of wonderment that might establish our supernatural origin would solve the impasse, and give us the upper hand, for literally there was now no way out of the dilemma but for us to RULE.