After having dug a trench seven feet long, I interred myself with all possible precautions.—[Page 132.]
So soon as I was fairly under the turf I turned my thoughts to the future, and occupied myself with studying how to reign well. Subjects generally render this task easy enough to their rulers. They are determined at every hazard to believe the successor infinitely superior in all things to his predecessor. Let him do what he may, he is always more intelligent, energetic, and generous. This is the first stage of forced popularity. Even Nero, Louis XI. of France, and George IV. of England, have not escaped it. The second stage of popularity often to a new sovereign is for him to be always doing exactly the reverse of his predecessor. If the latter was fond of talking, then it should be your aim to be silent; if he was silent, you should be fond of talking; if he always went out on foot, you should never go out except on horseback; if he went out on horseback, you should only go out on foot; if he was proud, you should be familiar; if he was familiar, you should be proud; if he was peaceful, you should be warlike; if he was warlike, you should be peaceful; if he loved the arts, you should despise them; if he despised them, you ought to pretend to love them; if he adored his children, you should remain a bachelor; if he practised celibacy, you ought in this case to marry; if he scattered gold about, your plan would be to be saving; if he was miserly, then you should scatter your gold with an open hand. I have said sufficient for the reader to perceive the value of my theory. Let us pass now, so far as the matter concerns me, to the application of it.
It will be readily understood that not having really to govern men, but creatures vastly inferior to them, who bore, however, at the same time, a grim resemblance to mankind in general, I did not have occasion to apply my theory in all its rigour. I simply set myself to work to see how I could twist it so as to turn to my own purposes minds which were alike inconsistent, frivolous, and, as we all know, imitative to a degree.
My predecessor, Karabouffi, had urged on his subjects, now my subjects, to destroy my comfortable verandah. I could not imagine anything more agreeable to them than to decree its immediate reconstruction. I therefore took some of the stones detached by the force of their projectiles, and in their presence placed them one upon another in the symmetrical order which they had occupied before their overthrow. Immediately, as if by a fairy’s command, the stones were placed in a most workmanlike manner. I filled up the interstices with plaster which I had mixed with water to serve as a kind of mortar; at the same moment all my subjects, seized with a rage for building, pounded plaster, broke up freestone, carried water, mixed, stirred, and made me mortar sufficient to rebuild the Tower of Babel. They presented a curious sight, whitened all over as they were with plaster, even to their moustaches, elbows, and knees.
Karabouffi, on seeing the part which I took with his old subjects, looked as if he were thinking how easy it would have been for him to have followed the same course, and to have arrived at the same end. He was right, no doubt, but he had not done so.
However, warned as he now was by experience, should he ever regain his sceptre, all he would then have to do to render himself popular would be to demolish my work.
The verandah raised from its ruins, I traced through the neighbouring woods four splendid roads, several leagues in length, all radiating from a given point, and all leading to the sea. These magnificent openings were completed in a few days, and by the same simple means as those I had had recourse to when engaged in the reconstruction of my palace. I commenced by felling three trees to the right and three trees to the left of the four lines representing the four routes to be opened in the thicknesses of the forest. Immediately hands and hatchets were hard at work felling trees. It was like a renewal of the hurricane with which I was assailed on the night of my funeral. My object in opening these four roads was to catch sight from as far off as possible of any vessel that might touch at the island, and be the means of setting me free.
The reader will easily understand that when once I had secured for myself something like liberty in my movements, I did not rest without searching for any vestiges which might be scattered about the island, and which might give a clue to the fatal lot which had, in all probability, befallen the brave sailors of the naval station. My investigations were attended with the following result:—While examining the land-locked bay which Admiral Campbell’s journal indicated as the anchorage of the Halcyon, I was struck by a circumstance which clearly proved that this fine frigate had not left the bay in accordance with the ordinary rules of navigation. Had she done so she would have raised her anchor and the buoys which marked the spot where they had been dropped. Instead of this the buoys were in their places, and I had only to slip my hand under one of them to assure myself that the anchors had never been weighed. In their thievish haste the pirates had cut the cables above the buoys, and had thus set the frigate free in order to carry her off, Heaven only knows where.
I was, then, irrevocably condemned to endure my present lot; my original deductions had proved to be correct. The entire naval station had become the prey of the Malay scum of the archipelago of Sooloo.