Nevertheless, whatever forbearance I may have been disposed to exercise towards Karabouffi, I could not avoid the performance of one act which I knew would be very mortifying to his self-love and passions. But by the side of that prudence which I had just shown it was necessary that I should show a like degree of energy and equity. Moreover, in what I proposed doing I was only about to extend the principle in accordance with which I had spared Karabouffi himself. All the vervets, all the old followers of the mandrill whose place I occupied, were brought from exile and disgrace. Some old ourang-outangs, some baboons of the late reign, some old Dianas, wearing cocked hats crowned with big plumes stolen from Vice-Admiral Campbell’s station, murmured behind their beards. But I took no notice of their suppressed disgust. I knew the step that I was taking was a politic one, for it conciliated the others. One is always strong when one is in the right. The consequence was that the grand dignitaries of all kinds, those who held the rank of judges, generals, and grand officers of the palace, smiled at the proposition, and welcomed the outlaws with open arms. Vervets and baboons embraced one another weeping. Was the reconciliation sincere? It is very doubtful. Those who have an interest in keeping parties divided say that it is perilous to society to bring them together; but to continue my story—for these reflections are out of place.
The most cruel trial to which I was obliged to expose my predecessor, in spite of my well-known character for humanity, was this. Followed by all my subjects and the members of my court, and having my prime minister Karabouffi on my right hand, I directed my steps towards the prison of the unfortunate Mococo. The cortège was a most imposing one. We arrived at length in front of the horrible iron cage, on the floor of which lay the poor captive pining away through grief and love. The faithful Saïmira, who was at this moment consoling him through the bars, started back at the appearance of this crowd. She believed that we had come to seek her lover to drag him to the scaffold. How was I to undeceive her without betraying myself?
The event soon reassured her. After setting Mococo free, I placed his trembling hand in that of the gentle Saïmira, and made the two lovers understand, by keeping them for some minutes locked as it were in this soft pressure, that I united them in the face of this huge assembly, which had no doubt often seen among themselves infinitely worse assorted unions. At the sight of this happiness, which I had been the means of procuring for my two poor chimpanzees, Karabouffi rent the air with a cry of despair and rage. I pitied his position, and to spare him the slow agony of witnessing day by day the love which existed between this happy couple, I sent the two chimpanzees away for a time. They went under my protection to spend their honeymoon in an isolated spot which I had selected for them in a corner of the island, a charming retreat surrounded by clear and limpid waters, by pink and yellow convolvuli, and mysterious flowers which, opening only during the night, would not yield their perfume to the sun. The lady-monkeys, I am happy to say, appeared highly satisfied with my conduct.
They went to spend their honeymoon in an isolated spot which I had selected for them.—[Page 130.]
This commencement of a reign in appearance so easy did not leave me altogether without inquietude, although I hasten to declare after experience that nothing is more easy than to govern, and to govern well. When I was a bird-fancier at Macao, I have often found it more difficult to sell a parrot than it proved to become master of the wills of one hundred thousand subjects of by no means pliable natures who had fallen to my care.
But I must here mention the grave inquietude which troubled me in the early days of my reign. How could I feel perfectly tranquil so long as the mandrill’s skeleton remained suspended to the tree in the mimosa forest? The first one among my new subjects who might perceive it would not fail to divulge the fact to the others; and then what would become of me? How could I be at the same time both living and dead—hung and yet reigning? It would be indeed vexatious for a sovereign to have his own skeleton brought against him as a witness.
It was necessary, then, at all risks to put an end to this embarrassment. The simplest way, the reader will think, would be to get rid of this confounded skeleton; the simplest way—yes, but not for me, since I was constantly surrounded by thousands of courtiers. Notwithstanding this, during one of those stormy nights which are rarely known in other countries of the world—one of those nights, in fact, of brimstone and electricity which make tigers and elephants fall asleep on their knees, the air is so heavy to their eyes and brains—I sallied forth. My body-guards, chamberlains, and valets-de-chambre slept too soundly to have been aroused even by the trumpet of the last judgment. The wind drove the clouds so rapidly through the sky, that the moon appeared to leave its orbit and fall with all its weight to the horizon, to remount as rapidly to the zenith. Trees a hundred and forty feet high were snapped like reeds, and after having been blown down, and then into the air again, twirled round me like whirlwinds of straw; a single dry leaf—it is true some are half a yard long—catching me a blow would have cut me in two with the cleanness of a razor. I saw this hurricane mow down portions of the forests in the space of three minutes, and clear the ground bare to the solid rock. One would not understand how it was that I was not carried away like an atom, if one were ignorant of the fact that these hurricanes proceed by currents, which vary but little in extent. There are bands—kinds of lines almost as regular as if drawn to scale. Well, two paces from the tempest one can see it pass without being touched by it in the slightest degree. Such was the night chosen by me for my expedition.
No one saw me leave the verandah. I stole away in the shade, and, hidden by the contortions of the tempest, gained the wood of mimosas where I knew that my skeleton was hanging up. I say my skeleton, since henceforth I considered myself in all respects as neither more nor less than the mandrill discovered by Admiral Campbell. In due course I arrived at the tree, suspended to which were my poor bones rattling in the wind, when, after having dug a trench seven feet long, I interred myself with all possible precautions. I covered myself over at first with vegetable earth, then with sand, then with turf, and lastly with a layer of dry leaves. At this strange and solemn moment I believed myself a far more extraordinary personage than the Emperor Charles V. He only assisted at his own funeral procession at the Convent of Saint-Just, whereas I, Polydorus Marasquin, performed my own obsequies, and was my own undertaker, gravedigger, and mourner. Surely it will not be disputed that I was the first example of a sovereign or even of a man who had buried himself with his own hands.