THE Round Table soon heard of
the challenge, and of course
it was a good deal discussed,
for such things interested the
boys. The king thought I ought
now to set forth in quest of
adventures, so that I might gain
renown and be the more worthy
to meet Sir Sagramor when the
several years should have rolled
away. I excused myself for the
present; I said it would take
me three or four years yet to
get things well fixed up and
going smoothly; then I should
be ready; all the chances were
that at the end of that time
Sir Sagramor would still be out
grailing, so no valuable time
would be lost by the postponement;
I should then have been in office
six or seven years, and I believed
my system and machinery would
be so well developed that I could
take a holiday without its working
any harm.
I was pretty well satisfied
with what I had already accomplished.
In various quiet nooks and corners
I had the beginnings of all sorts
of industries under way -- nuclei
of future vast factories, the
iron and steel missionaries of
my future civilization. In these
were gathered together the brightest
young minds I could find, and
I kept agents out raking the
country for more, all the time.
I was training a crowd of ignorant
folk into experts -- experts
in every sort of handiwork and
scientific calling. These nurseries
of mine went smoothly and privately
along undisturbed in their obscure
country retreats, for nobody
was allowed to come into their
precincts without a special permit
-- for I was afraid of the Church.
I had started a teacher-factory
and a lot of Sundayschools the
first thing; as a result, I now
had an admirable system of graded
schools in full blast in those
places, and also a complete variety
of Protestant congregations all
in a prosperous and growing condition.
Everybody could be any kind of
a Christian he wanted to; there
was perfect freedom in that matter.
But I confined public religious
teaching to the churches and
the Sunday-schools, permitting
nothing of it in my other educational
buildings. I could have given
my own sect the preference and
made everybody a Presbyterian
without any trouble, but that
would have been to affront a
law of human nature: spiritual
wants and instincts are as various
in the human family as are physical
appetites, complexions, and features,
and a man is only at his best,
morally, when he is equipped
with the religious garment whose
color and shape and size most
nicely accommodate themselves
to the spiritual complexion,
angularities, and stature of
the individual who wears it;
and, besides, I was afraid of
a united Church; it makes a mighty
power, the mightiest conceivable,
and then when it by and by gets
into selfish hands, as it is
always bound to do, it means
death to human liberty and paralysis
to human thought.
All mines were royal property,
and there were a good many of
them. They had formerly been
worked as savages always work
mines -- holes grubbed in the
earth and the mineral brought
up in sacks of hide by hand,
at the rate of a ton a day; but
I had begun to put the mining
on a scientific basis as early
as I could.
Yes, I had made pretty handsome
progress when Sir Sagramor's
challenge struck me.
Four years rolled by -- and
then! Well, you would never imagine
it in the world. Unlimited power
is the ideal thing when it is
in safe hands. The despotism
of heaven is the one absolutely
perfect government. An earthly
despotism would be the absolutely
perfect earthly government, if
the conditions were the same,
namely, the despot the perfectest
individual of the human race,
and his lease of life perpetual.
But as a perishable perfect man
must die, and leave his despotism
in the hands of an imperfect
successor, an earthly despotism
is not merely a bad form of government,
it is the worst form that is
possible.
My works showed what a despot
could do with the resources of
a kingdom at his command. Unsuspected
by this dark land, I had the
civilization of the nineteenth
century booming under its very
nose! It was fenced away from
the public view, but there it
was, a gigantic and unassailable
fact -- and to be heard from,
yet, if I lived and had luck.
There it was, as sure a fact
and as substantial a fact as
any serene volcano, standing
innocent with its smokeless summit
in the blue sky and giving no
sign of the rising hell in its
bowels. My schools and churches
were children four years before;
they were grown-up now; my shops
of that day were vast factories
now; where I had a dozen trained
men then, I had a thousand now;
where I had one brilliant expert
then, I had fifty now. I stood
with my hand on the cock, so
to speak, ready to turn it on
and flood the midnight world
with light at any moment. But
I was not going to do the thing
in that sudden way. It was not
my policy. The people could not
have stood it; and, moreover,
I should have had the Established
Roman Catholic Church on my back
in a minute.
No, I had been going cautiously
all the while. I had had confidential
agents trickling through the
country some time, whose office
was to undermine knighthood by
imperceptible degrees, and to
gnaw a little at this and that
and the other superstition, and
so prepare the way gradually
for a better order of things.
I was turning on my light one-candle-power
at a time, and meant to continue
to do so.
I had scattered some branch
schools secretly about the kingdom,
and they were doing very well.
I meant to work this racket more
and more, as time wore on, if
nothing occurred to frighten
me. One of my deepest secrets
was my West Point -- my military
academy. I kept that most jealously
out of sight; and I did the same
with my naval academy which I
had established at a remote seaport.
Both were prospering to my satisfaction.
Clarence was twenty-two now,
and was my head executive, my
right hand. He was a darling;
he was equal to anything; there
wasn't anything he couldn't turn
his hand to. Of late I had been
training him for journalism,
for the time seemed about right
for a start in the newspaper
line; nothing big, but just a
small weekly for experimental
circulation in my civilization
nurseries. He took to it like
a duck; there was an editor concealed
in him, sure. Already he had
doubled himself in one way; he
talked sixth century and wrote
nineteenth. His journalistic
style was climbing, steadily;
it was already up to the back
settlement Alabama mark, and
couldn't be told from the editorial
output of that region either
by matter or flavor.
We had another large departure
on hand, too. This was a telegraph
and a telephone; our first venture
in this line. These wires were
for private service only, as
yet, and must be kept private
until a riper day should come.
We had a gang of men on the road,
working mainly by night. They
were stringing ground wires;
we were afraid to put up poles,
for they would attract too much
inquiry. Ground wires were good
enough, in both instances, for
my wires were protected by an
insulation of my own invention
which was perfect. My men had
orders to strike across country,
avoiding roads, and establishing
connection with any considerable
towns whose lights betrayed their
presence, and leaving experts
in charge. Nobody could tell
you how to find any place in
the kingdom, for nobody ever
went intentionally to any place,
but only struck it by accident
in his wanderings, and then generally
left it without thinking to inquire
what its name was. At one time
and another we had sent out topographical
expeditions to survey and map
the kingdom, but the priests
had always interfered and raised
trouble. So we had given the
thing up, for the present; it
would be poor wisdom to antagonize
the Church.
As for the general condition
of the country, it was as it
had been when I arrived in it,
to all intents and purposes.
I had made changes, but they
were necessarily slight, and
they were not noticeable. Thus
far, I had not even meddled with
taxation, outside of the taxes
which provided the royal revenues.
I had systematized those, and
put the service on an effective
and righteous basis. As a result,
these revenues were already quadrupled,
and yet the burden was so much
more equably distributed than
before, that all the kingdom
felt a sense of relief, and the
praises of my administration
were hearty and general.
Personally, I struck an interruption,
now, but I did not mind it, it
could not have happened at a
better time. Earlier it could
have annoyed me, but now everything
was in good hands and swimming
right along. The king had reminded
me several times, of late, that
the postponement I had asked
for, four years before, had about
run out now. It was a hint that
I ought to be starting out to
seek adventures and get up a
reputation of a size to make
me worthy of the honor of breaking
a lance with Sir Sagramor, who
was still out grailing, but was
being hunted for by various relief
expeditions, and might be found
any year, now. So you see I was
expecting this interruption;
it did not take me by surprise. |