Across the Zodiac (21 page)

"Eveena," said my host, "I have told our friend, what you know, that
there is in this world a society, of which I am a member, whose
principles are not those of our countrymen, but resemble rather those
which supplied the impulses on which he acted to-day. This much you
know. What you would have learned a few days hence, I mean that you
and he shall now hear at the same time."

"Before you enter on that subject," interposed Zulve timidly—for it
is most unusual for a lady to interfere in her husband's conversation,
much more to offer a suggestion or correction—but yet earnestly, "let
me say, on my own part, what I am sure you must have said already on
yours. If there be now, or ever shall be, anything we can do for our
guest, anything we can give that he would value, not in requital, but
in memory of what he has done for us—whatever it should cost us,
though he should ask the most precious thing we possess, it will be
our pride and pleasure—the greatest pleasure he can afford us—to
grant it."

The time and the surroundings were not perhaps exactly suitable to the
utterance of the wish suggested by these words; but I knew so little
what might be in store for me, and understood so well the difficulty
and uncertainty of finding future opportunities of intercourse with
the ladies at least of the family, that I dared not lose the present.
I spoke at once upon the impulse of the moment, with a sense of
reckless desperation not unlike that with which an artillerist fires
the train whose explosion may win for him the obsidional wreath or
blow him into atoms. "You and my host," I said, "have one treasure
that I have learned to covet, but it is exactly the most precious
thing you possess, and one which it would be presumptuous to ask as
reward; even had I not owed to Esmo the life I perilled for Eveena,
and if I had acted from choice and freely, instead of doing only what
only the vilest of cowards could have failed to attempt. In asking it
indeed, I feel that I cancel whatever claim your extravagant estimate
of that act can possibly ascribe to me."

"We don't waste words," answered Esmo, "in saying what we don't mean,
and I confirm fully what my wife has said. There is nothing we possess
that we shall not delight to give as token of regard and in
remembrance of this day to the saviour of our child."

"If," I said, "I find a neighbour's purse containing half his fortune,
and return it to him, he may offer me what reward I ask, but would
hardly think it reasonable if I asked for the purse and its contents.
But you have only one thing I care to possess—that which I have, by
God's help, been enabled to save to-day. If I must ask a gift, give me
Eveena herself."

Utilitarianism has extinguished in Mars the use of compliment and
circumlocution; and until I concluded, their looks of mild perplexity
showed that neither Zulve nor her husband caught my purpose. I
fancied—for, not daring to look them in the face, I had turned my
downcast glance on Eveena—that she had perhaps somewhat sooner
divined the object of my thoughts. However, a silence of surprise—was
it of reluctance?—followed, and then Zulve bent over her daughter and
looked into her half-averted face, while Esmo answered—

"What you should ask I promised to give; what you have asked I give,
in so far as it is mine to give, in willing fulfilment of my pledge.
But, of course, what I can give is but my free permission to my
daughter to answer for herself. You will be, I hope, within a few days
at furthest, one of those in whose possession alone a woman of my
house could be safe or content; and, free by the law of the land to
follow her own wish, she is freed by her father's voice from the rule
which the usage of ten thousand years imposes on the daughters of our
brotherhood."

Zulve then looked up, for Eveena had hidden her face in her mother's
robe, and said—

"If my child will not speak for herself I must speak for her, and in
my own name and in hers I fulfil her father's promise. And now let my
husband tell his story, for nothing can solemnise more appropriately
the betrothal of a daughter of the Star, than her admission to the
knowledge of the Order whose privileges are her heritage."

"At the time," Esmo began, "when material science had gained a decided
ascendant, and enforced the recognition of its methods as the only
ones whereby certain knowledge and legitimate belief could be
attained, those who clung most earnestly to convictions not acquired
or favoured by scientific logic were sorely dismayed. They were
confounded, not so much by the yet informal but irrevocable
majority-vote against them, as by an instinctive misgiving that
Science was right; and by irrepressible doubts whether that which
would not bear the application of scientific method could in any sense
be true or trustworthy knowledge. At the same time, to apply a
scientific method to the cherished beliefs threatened only to dissolve
them. Fortunately for them and their successors, there was living at
that time one of the most remarkable and original thinkers whom our
race has produced. From him came the suggestions that gave impulse to
our learning and birth to our Order. 'The reasonings, the processes of
Science,' he affirmed,'are beyond challenge. Their trustworthiness
depends not on their subject-matter, but on their own character; not
on their relation to outward Nature, but on their conformity to the
laws of thought. Their upholders are right in affirming that what will
not ultimately bear the test of their application cannot be knowledge,
and probably—for the practical purposes of human life we may say
certainly—cannot be truth. They are wrong in alleging that the ideas
for which they can find no foundation in the subjects to which
scientific method has hitherto been applied, are therefore
unscientific, or sure to disappear under scientific investigation. I
hold that the existence of a Creator and Ruler of the Universe can be
logically deduced from first principles, as well as justly inferred
from cumulative evidences of overwhelming weight. The existence of
something in Man that is not merely corporeal, of powers that can act
beyond the reach of any corporeal instruments at his command, or
without the range of their application, is not proven; it may be, only
because the facts that indicate without proving it have never yet been
subject to systematic verification or scientific analysis. But of such
facts there exists a vast accumulation; unsifted, untested, and
therefore as yet ineffective for proof, but capable, I can scarcely
doubt, of reduction to methodical order and scientific treatment.
There are records and traditions of every degree of value, from utter
worthlessness to the worth of the most authentic history, preserving
the evidences of powers which may be generally described as spiritual.
Through all ages, among all races, the living have alleged themselves
from time to time to have seen the forms and even heard the voices of
the dead. Scientific men have been forced by the actual and public
exercise of the power under the most crucial tests—for instance, to
produce insensibility in surgical operations—to admit that the will
of one man can control the brain, the senses, the physical frame of
another without material contact, perhaps at a distance. There are
narratives of marvels wrought by human will, chiefly in remote, but
occasionally in recent times, transcending and even contradicting or
overruling the known laws of Nature. All these evidences point to one
conclusion; all corroborate and confirm one another. The men of
science ridicule them because in so many cases the facts are
imperfectly authenticated, and because in others the action of the
powers is uncertain, dependent on conditions imperfectly ascertained,
and not of that material kind to which material science willingly
submits. But if they be facts, if they relate to any element of human
nature, all these things can be systematically investigated, the true
separated from the false, the proven from the unproven. The powers can
be investigated, their conditions of action laid down. Probably they
may be so developed as to be exercised with comparative certainty,
whether by every one or only by those special constitutions in which
they may inhere. Such investigations will at present only enlist the
attention and care of a few qualified persons, and, that they may be
carried on in peace and safety, should be carried on in secrecy. But
upon them may, I hope, be founded a certainty as regards the higher
side of man's nature not less complete than that which science, by
similar methods, has gradually acquired in regard to its purely
physical aspects.'

"For this end he instituted a secret society, which has subsisted in
constantly increasing strength and cohesion to the present hour. It
has collected evidence, conducted experiments, investigated records,
studied methodically the abnormal phenomena you call occult or
spiritual, and reduced them to something like the certainty of
science. Discoveries from the first curious and interesting have
become more and more complete, practical, and effective. Our results
have surpassed the hopes of our Founder, and transcend in importance,
while they equal in certainty, the contemporary achievements of
physical science,—some of the chief of which belong to us. All that
profound knowledge of human nature could suggest to bring its weakness
to the support of its strength, and enlist both in the work, was done
by our Founder, and by those who have carried out his scheme. The
corporate character of the society, its rites and formularies, its
grades and ranks, are matter of deep interest to all its members, have
linked them together by an inviolable bond, and given them a strength
infinitely greater than numbers without such cohesion could possibly
have afforded. The Founder left us no moral code, imposed on us none
of his own most cherished ethical convictions, as he pledged us to
none of the conclusions which his own occult studies had led him to
anticipate, nearly all of which have been verified by later
investigation. Such rules as he imposed were directed only to the
cohesion and efficiency of the Order. Our creed still consists only of
the two fundamental doctrines; two settled principles only are laid
down by our aboriginal law. We are taught to cultivate the closest
personal affection, the most intimate and binding ties among
ourselves; to defend the Order and one another, whether by strenuous
resistance or severe reprisals, against all who injure us individually
or collectively, and especially against persecutors of the Order. But
the few laws our Founder has left are given in the form of striking
precepts, brief, and often even paradoxical. For example, the law of
defence or reprisal is concentrated in one antithetic phrase:—
Gavart
dax Zveltâ, gavart gedex Zinta
(Never let the member strike, never
let the Order spare)
. As it is a rule with us to embody none of our
symbols, forms, or laws in writing, this manner of statement served to
impress them on the memory, as well as to leave the utmost freedom in
their application, by the gathered experience of ages, and the
prudence of those who had to deal with the circumstances of each
successive period. Another maxim says, 'Who kisses a brother's hand
may kick the Camptâ,' thus enforcing at once the value of ceremonial
courtesy, and the power conferred by union. We observe more ceremony
in family life than others in the most formal public relations. Their
theory of life being utterly utilitarian, no form is observed that
serves no distinct practical purpose. We wish to make life graceful
and elegant, as well as easy. Principles originally inculcated upon us
by the necessity of self-protection have been enforced and graven on
our very nature, by the reaction of our experience against the rough
and harsh relations, the jarring and often unfriendly intercourse, of
external society. Aliens to our Order—that is, ninety-nine hundredths
of our race—take delight in the infliction of petty personal
annoyance, at least never take care not to 'jar each other's
elbow-nerves,' or set on edge the teeth that never bit them.
We
are
careful not to wound the feelings or even the weaknesses of a brother.
Punctilious courtesy, frank apology for unintentional wrong, is with
us a point of honour. Disputes, when by any chance they arise, are
referred to the arbitration of our chiefs, who never consider their
work done till the disputants are cordially reconciled. Envy, the most
dangerous source of ill-will among men, can hardly exist among us.
Rank has been well earned by its holder, or in a few cases by his
ancestors; and authority is a trust never to be used for its holder's
benefit. Wealth never provokes covetousness, since no member is ever
allowed to be poor. Not only the Order but each member is bound to
take every opportunity of assisting every other by every method within
his power. We employ them, we promote them, we give them the
preference in every kind of patronage at our command. But these
obligations are points of honour rather than of law. Only apostasy or
treason to the Order involve compulsory penalties; and the latter, if
it ever occurred in these days, would be visited with instant
death,—inflicted, as it is inflicted upon irreconcilable enemies, in
such a manner that none could know who passed the sentence, or by whom
it was executed."

"And have you," I asked, "no apostates, as you have no traitors?"

"No," he said. "In the first place, none who has lived among us could
endure to fall into the ordinary Martial life. Secondly, the
foundations of our simple creed are so clear, so capable of being made
apparent to every one, that none once familiar with the evidences can
well cease to believe them."

Here he paused, and I asked, "How is it possible that the means you
employ to punish those who have wronged you should not, in some cases
at least, indicate the person who has employed them?"