THE genius of the Torides had qualities which more affiliated them with the people of our own earth than did that of the Saturnians. Their desire for power had stimulated them to develop the material sciences, and to experiment with a view to the physical control of nature for personal ends; whereas the Saturnians sought knowledge for the sake of its inherent goodness and beauty, and therefore aimed to obliterate self as far as they might, in order to thus remove the obstruction to influx and render themselves obedient channels of the omnipotent force. They used no writing, because such records of the past as were spiritually useful were spontaneously present with them in each passing hour, and the source of their wisdom constantly supplied them to the limits of their capacity; they built no enduring structures, because they could immediately fashion their natural surroundings into the form of their thoughts; they gave no labor to food and protection, because the substances necessary to their bodily nourishment passed into them in measure as waste created the demand, on a principle analogous to the flow of vegetable sap; and for defense, should that be required, they could so modify the vibrations of reflected light as to render themselves invisible. They were wholly occupied with the concerns of the moment; and they were independent of space, by reason of their ability not only to appear and to act at a distance mentally, but also to effect almost immediate bodily transference. The general result of all this was, not a complicated but an extremely simple manner of existence on the physical plane, interrupted on special occasions only for some exceptional purpose; their ordinary life was as artless and naïve as that of children; and they enriched their environment not otherwise than by establishing an increasing harmony between it and themselves. To this harmony was due the extension of their physical life to periods vastly beyond any imaginable limits of ours, accompanied throughout by a perfection of vigor and freshness which we ascribe to the prime of youth alone.
Widely alien from this, and more consonant with ours, were the methods and ambitions of the Torides, a self-centered and arrogant race, eager to amaze and subdue by arbitrary force, and far more conversant than are we not only with the more legitimate processes of science, but with those devices to effect illusion of sense and mental bewilderment and subjection which were practised to a limited degree by the necromancers and adepts of former ages. They were of a turbulent and restless temper, capable of daring and arduous enterprises, but always unsatisfied and unruly. Their present ruler exercised a sway over them more absolute and severe than any they had known for a long time; he possessed in the fullest degree the qualities of the Torides nature, supplemented by an intellectual training and accomplishment rivaled by no other. By means at his disposal he had acquainted himself with many details of the nature and civilization of most of the inhabitants of the planets of our system, and of our own earth especially; with the ultimate object, never yet avowed but intensely fostered, of obtaining supreme domination over them all. He had long been collecting the materials for achieving this stupendous project; and at the time of Miriam’s arrival on the scene he conceived himself to be nearly ready to attempt it. The passion for possession of her which had seized upon him appeared to him to be something far above the limitations of a personal desire to enjoy her love and beauty; he imagined that a union with her would greatly enhance his chances of success in his cosmic adventure. Working together for that end, each would multiply the other’s powers; and his actual contact with her, brief though it had been, and hostile outwardly, had confirmed his confidence in the final outcome.
Among his many studies he had not neglected research into the nature of woman, and fancied himself no tyro in that far-reaching and ramifying mystery. Miriam’s unexampled exile from her home and people would render her, he reflected, tenderly susceptible to influences that should seem to conciliate that estrangement, and to make her forget the violence and extraordinary circumstances of her seizure, and he took his measures accordingly.
After conducting her into the castle he waved aside the guards and attendants who assembled to do them honor, and led her through several halls and antechambers, massively built and furnished with austere dignity, to an upper floor where a corridor opened before them wainscoted with light-tinted and polished woods, the upper walls and ceilings colored in cheerful hues, with designs gracefully and tastefully conceived. At the end of the passage he flung open a door, and stood aside, with an obeisance, for her to enter.
Upon crossing the threshold she found herself in the outermost of a suite of rooms, the first glimpse of which almost betrayed her into an exclamation of astonishment. He was watching her closely and he smiled.
“Anything you wish is at your service here,” he said quietly. “There are women at your call to wait upon you. You are mistress of this place and of this planet. If you should be disposed to see me I will come; otherwise your privacy will be inviolate.”
The door closed and she heard his tread departing down the passage.
After standing for a few moments, looking interestedly about her, while the stern expression of her face gradually softened with pleased surprise, she walked slowly through the five or six rooms of the apartment. At every step some new object aroused her wonder and gratification. If this were magic it was admirable employed!
The site was a replica, apparently exact, of her own rooms in her father’s house on the Long Island shore. Had skilled architects and upholsterers employed months in executing a careful reproduction their success could not have been greater than had been here achieved, as it seemed, instantaneously. It was home itself! Even familiar trifles—an inlaid hand-mirror, an ivory fan from Burma, a silver flask of Damascus perfume, a color photograph of her father—were in their accustomed places. The rugs on the inlaid floors were of her own selection; the embroidery on the silken bed-covering was of her own design. Entering the room on the left of the bedchamber, which she had had fitted up as a study and laboratory, she found all her paraphernalia apparently as she had left them when going on her last visit to Mary Faust. This discovery aroused in her something more than surprise. She examined various articles minutely; then, throwing herself into the study chair, she spent some time in grave meditation. If this apparatus were as genuine as it looked, Torpeon had, no doubt, unwittingly put in her hands potent means for defeating his own plans. Before leaving her earth she had nearly completed an invention, based upon atomic disintegration, which was capable of being applied in a manner to give unexpected significance to his statement that she was “mistress of Tor.” If the result of her experiments answered their promise the words would become something more than an empty compliment.
“At any rate,” she told herself, “science is science, in one part of the universe as much as in another. But, of course, all this wonderful reproduction is a clever device to put me off my guard—an expansion of the same principle used by Hindu jugglers to beguile the senses. I seem to be at home again, but I am a prisoner here, nevertheless; and probably under constant observation. If there were only some one here whom I could trust!”
As she uttered the wish an incongruous thought of the grotesque little cripple, Jim, slipped into her mind. It was one of those unaccountable vagaries which characterize memory. She had never given more than passing attention to him. The impression was probably due to the prevailing, if sometimes subconscious, presence of Jack in her reflections; the one would suggest the other. Jack! Where was he? What was he doing or planning? Doubtless he would attempt to follow her. Aided by the Saturnians—but would they aid him? And must not Torpeon have prepared for all such contingencies? Did not the very liberality with which he treated her indicate his conviction that he was safe from attack? Yes; she must not depend upon outside assistance. She must fight for herself!
But, once more, that impression of the cripple returned to her. She half resented it. But she dismissed that feeling; the poor little creature could not be responsible for the notion. It was odd how clearly he was presented before her mind’s eye. She must have taken more exact note of him than she had supposed. Jim was the only one of the three who had undergone no outward alteration on his arrival on Saturn; the flame garments which she and Jack had assumed had not replaced, for him, the quaint, terrestrial jacket and trousers which he had worn in New York. Jim was too elementary in his simplicity to undergo change. And yet the soul of him, which was loyal, honest and affectionate, must be capable, like all true and loving souls of indefinite development. But he would always be Jim! Miriam smiled and sighed. Then she rose, with an impatient impulse, and returned to the bedroom.
Yonder was her dressing-table in the corner, with the cheval-glass standing beside it, inclined at the angle she had last given it. She walked up to it with a feminine curiosity, to see how she looked in Saturnian costume.
She was frankly startled when the reflection given back to her showed her to be wearing the same dove-colored flying-suit that was her usual dress when visiting the Long Island estate. The degree of pleasure which this gave her was perhaps not logically justifiable. It seemed to bring her real home nearer than had any of the other features of the production of her familiar surroundings—reproduction, illusion, or whatever it might be. Here she stood, as she was accustomed to see herself! It restored her self-possession. And she yielded to a genuine emotion of gratitude to Torpeon, whose foresight must have been something more than self-interested to inspire him to such a thought. It implied real interest in her.
“The creature does really care for me!” she said to herself. She seated herself in the chair before the dressing-table, and by the mere force of habit touched the bell-punch in the panel, by which she was wont to summon her personal maid, Jenny. Jenny was a New England girl, daughter of a farmer, who had been a chum of Terence Mayne before they emigrated to America. Old Mike, dying a widower in narrow circumstances, had left his daughter an orphan, and Terence, for old sake’s sake, had brought her to New York to be Miriam’s confidential attendant.
“Dear little Jenny!” murmured Miriam, as she sent the signal along the wire. “I wonder if she misses me! What kind of substitute will I get, do you suppose?”
The door leading into the servant’s quarters opened quietly, and a light step was audible approaching from behind; that was how Jenny used to come in, and the rhythm of the steps was like hers. In a moment Jenny herself stood before her mistress and dropped a curtsy with her warm Hibernian smile.
“Did you ring, miss?” The well remembered lilt of the Cork brogue—Jenny was born in Old Kinsale!
“Bring me a cup of tea, Jenny,” said Miriam. But this was mere reflex action, she had been too much amazed to express her amazement.
“Sure I will, miss, with pleasure,” Jenny relied; and turned briskly and walked out. There had been no illusion about it, no reproduction. Inanimate things might be imitated, but not a human being in flesh and blood.
Miriam had leisure before Jenny returned with the tea-things on the tray to recover her breath and to turn the matter over in her mind. But the only result of her reflections was an increased admiration for Torpeon: a being who could do this was not to be despised. It showed something more and better than control of hidden agencies; there was a grace, a delicacy, in the achievement—a manifestation of the heart—which carried still further the kindly sentiment which she had begun to feel for him, in spite of her resolve to bring his purposes to naught.
Now she heard the clink of the tea-things on the tray, and here was Jenny again, bearing the smoking teapot, the sugar, the sliced lemon, the thin slices of brown bread and butter, and the Japanese porcelain teacup and saucer.