Life in a Thousand Worlds Part 18

After this manner spake the glib-tongued fellows and, behold, their speeches were as oil on the troubled waters. Under their sophistries the laborers were content and peacefully went to their tasks again after three months of unrest.

Then did the members of the corporations consult again and spake among themselves in this fas.h.i.+on:

"For our protection let us gather, from the laborers, the youthful and the strong, have them taught in tactics of war, and make it unlawful for any to carry deadly weapons, except these trained men, whom we will call our Soil Defenders, and if any of the laborers should ask: 'Wherefore are we called to do this work?' we will say to them, 'For the defense of the soil and the defense of our families are ye called, therefore quit yourselves n.o.bly.'

"And it shall come to pa.s.s that when the laborers commence a foolish struggle for their own selfish gain, we can use these trained soldiers to keep them in peace, and thus we need not spend so much of our breath by way of persuasion."

Behold this thing seemed reasonable and seasonable in the eyes of the Trust. They did according to these suggestions and gathered unto themselves, in the name of the civil law, the strongest of the youth and trained them in all the ways of war. Thus did these workmen lose all their liberties by slow degrees, until they were no more troublesome, but labored like slaves to get the wherewithal to live.

As I witnessed this sad picture resulting from the inhumanity of man to man, I was at once reminded of what I had seen on Mars, and of the struggle now pending in my own world. Once more I breathed a silent prayer to the Ruler of all worlds in behalf of the crushed hands and bleeding hearts that are bruised in order that certain men may make their thousands in a day.

I studied the social life of the refined villagers and learned, with much interest, that the word they use for soil, is used in the same esteemed connection in which we use the word gold or diamond.

Preachers, teachers and orators make endless references to the soil.

Finally I approached, in a visible form, a few professors who were engaged in a special discussion.

They were alarmed at my sudden appearance, not knowing whence I came nor what sort of an animal I might be. I quickly calmed their troubled minds by using language they easily understood, and explained that I was neither a ghost nor a spirit, but a mere citizen of another world, having, for a limited period, a free excursion ticket to a thousand worlds, and that I chose their planet as one whereon to spend a fleeting period.

Not having been accustomed to such visitants, they were at first skeptical and thoroughly overawed at my presence.

I purposely became as familiar as possible and cautioned them to remain in the selfsame room and spread no notice of my presence. To this request they reluctantly consented.

After my nonplused auditors gained their senses somewhat they ventured to reply to my coaxing questions; these finally led to the following interrogations on their part:

"How large is your world?" came a question from one.

"Not quite so large as this one," I replied.

"Have you much soil there?"

"A million times more than you have here."

"What a wonderfully rich world! The people must be gloriously happy with such fabulous wealth around them."

"The bulk of my fellow-men there are not happy," I sighed. "So many spend their lives looking for diamonds and gold, the most of whom are doomed to disappointment."

An incredulous smile crept over the faces of my newly-made friends, and by it I read the doubt that was arising in their hearts as to the truth of my utterance.

"My words are sincere," I insisted. "If you could take one bushel of your diamonds to the world where I live, you could get more soil for them than you have on your whole globe."

"That world is heaven," exclaimed a few of my hearers at once. "A world of such abundant soil cannot be any other place." Then I learned that their conception of Heaven is not a place of gold-paved streets, but a place where soil is freely distributed even on the sides of the streets.

I continued speaking, telling them how diamonds were considered in our world. These professors were astonished beyond measure at my description, and each one seemed to crave for the knowledge to transport a large consignment of their diamonds to our Earth and return with acres of soil to the Diamond World.

I spent a felicitous period with these queer-shaped scholars of the Diamond World. They prayed and begged that I should remain and appear before the corporations. Their spirits drooped when I told them that if I had any more time to spend visibly on their world I would prefer to comfort the laborers and their suffering families who had been so long deprived of the fair treatment they deserved.

My hearers became ashen with fear, now feeling doubly a.s.sured that I was a forerunner of some terrible curse that was about to fall upon the Trusts and corporations whom those professors were serving so a.s.siduously, without ever speaking a word of protest in favor of the human slaves around them.

Once more I related my station. But I spoke in most convincing terms of the eternal curse with which the Infinite would visit the guilty of all worlds.

As I left them I saw that my last words brought no relief to their faces and, after a long silence, they nervously discussed the whole affair, not being able to account for the exceptional experience through which they had just pa.s.sed.

I visited, in a form invisible, the mansions of the rich and found that the most choice ornaments on their parlor shelves consisted of vials of soil or dirt, and in the homes of the most wealthy only I saw flowering plants.

It chanced that I visited this world at the graduating period of the greater schools. This gave me privilege to hear an oration on "The Soil and the Diamond," a synopsis of which I will translate as correctly as I can. It will be remembered that I must use terms and style suitable to our language.

"O beautiful soil! Thou art but a type of thy maker invisible. Thou dost give birth to countless forms and nursest them all from thy own bosom.

From the atom thou bringest the oak, and all its children fall back into thy arms for succor. From thy own heart spring the infinite types of vegetable beauty, all painted and frescoed by thy own exquisite touches.

"O mysterious soil! Wrapped in thy bosom lie a thousand secrets which, if I could but read, I might interpret and thus learn anew of my Creator. Thou holdest the ashes of the millions slain, and the dust of all our forefathers.

"O silent soil! How thou workest without the flying shuttle, or the hum of the busy bees. Thou doest thy greatest deeds without the sounding of a trumpet. Silently thy atoms take their places to serve in higher forms. O teach me thy mute language that I may live and sacrifice for others without my crying and my sighing.

"O humble soil! Thy elements, when formed into man, or fruit, or any kind of food, return again without complaint when touched by death. May I, like thee, take all my condescension in the spirit of humility.

"O modest soil! Thou are not gaudy like the diamond, sparkling and dazzling in a brilliant show and living for nothing higher than display.

But thou dost lay aside thy feathery tips, leaving the sun of heaven do the s.h.i.+ning. Thou permittest water crystals to give the rainbow hues, whilst thou in thy own modest way, continuest to yield sustenance for man and bird and beast.

"O instructive soil! Wilt thou not, in thy own wise way, speak to the thoughtless man who feels content to grovel with the miserable diamond, who takes his lessons from the dead, dead rock, and feeds his soul upon such flinty food. Open his ears to hear thy words of life and light, and may he see in thee the brighter mirror reflecting the G.o.d of all."

This one oration condensed is a fair sample of the others. I listened to the whole program and then proceeded once more to view the diamond splendors before I left this world where I was well paid for my tarrying.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Triumphant Feat of Orion.

As I continued ranging among the planets of the constellation of Orion, I felt an indescribable desire to pause at a very small orb which revolves around Saiph, a star of the third magnitude.

Here I found, to my surprise, a gem of a world which I will call Holen.

It is five hundred miles in diameter, and inhabited by a refined race of human beings, radically different from us in physical contour, but remarkably similar to us in their mental aspirations.

As a race they greatly excel us in mechanical engineering. Many evidences of their skill might be given, but we will be content to give a description of their monumental engineering feat.

Long ages ago Holen had cooled to the center, and it became the ruling pa.s.sion of her most intelligent inhabitants to communicate from one side of the globe to the other through an opening of five hundred miles almost directly through the center of their earth, or more accurately speaking, through the center of gravity.

After forty-five hundred years of experimenting the marvelous feat was accomplished.

Of all the worlds in the constellation of Orion, large or small, Holen is the only one that has succeeded in this astounding feat, although it has been and is being tried on more than a dozen worlds.

This wonderful opening through Holen's center of gravity is lined with sections of ribbed metal which cost the governments fabulous sums. This vast tube was finished thirteen hundred years ago according to our time.

Many lives were sacrificed in the hazardous work of tunneling. Were it not for the ribbed metal which afforded protection with its shelving f.l.a.n.g.es, the tube could never have been finished.

At the present time the tube is used for commercial purposes and for pa.s.senger traffic. Air tight cars of special design are used, and only one car is allowed in the tube at one time.