He found Rainiharo, with a tremendous frown on his face and deep lines of care on his brow, seated in front of our friend the Secretary, who had an open book on his knee. Three other officers of the palace sat beside them. These constituted a court of inquiry into the contents of the suspected books, and the Secretary, being the only literary character among them, was the appointed reader.
“Come here. Sit down,” said Rainiharo, sternly pointing to a seat; “we want you to explain your books. The Queen commands us to examine them, and, if we find anything contrary to her wishes in them, to condemn them to the flames. But it seems to us that there is nothing in them but rubbish which we cannot understand.”
Strange, is it not, that in barbaric as well as in civilised lands, people are apt to regard as rubbish that which they do not understand?
So thought the Court Physician, but he wisely held his tongue and sat down.
“This book,” said the Prime Minister, pointing with a look of mingled contempt and exasperation to the volume on the Secretary’s knee, “is worse than the last. The one we condemned yesterday was what you call your Bible. We began with it because it was the biggest book. Being practical men we began at the beginning, intending to go straight through and give it a fair hearing. We began at Gen—Gen—what was it?”
“Genesis,” answered the Secretary.
“Genzis—yes. Well, we found nothing to object to in the first verse, but in the second—the very second—we found the word ‘darkness.’ This was sufficient! Queen Ranavalona does not like darkness, so we condemned it at once—unanimously—for we could not for a moment tolerate anything with darkness in it.”
Mark felt an almost irresistible desire to laugh outright, but as the gratification of that desire might have cost him his head he did resist it successfully.
“Now,” continued the Prime Minister, with a darker frown, “we have got to the Pil—Pil—what is it?”
“Pilgrim’s Progress,” answered the Secretary. “Just so—the Pilgim’s Progress. Well, we agreed that we would give the Pil—Pilgim’s Progress a better chance, so we opened it, as it were, anyhow, and what do we come on—the very first thing—but a man named Obstinate! Now, if there is one thing that the Queen hates more than another it is an obstinate man. She cannot abide obstinate men. In fact, she has none such about her, for the few men of that sort that have turned up now and then have invariably lost their heads. But we wanted to be fair, so we read on, and what do we find as one of the first things that Obstinate says? He says, ‘Tush! away with your book!’ Now, if the man himself condemns the book, is our Queen likely to spare it? But there are some things in the book which we cannot understand, so we have sent for you to explain it. Now,” added Rainiharo, turning to the Secretary, “translate all that to the maker of physic and tell me what he has to answer.”