Chapter 10 HOW WE WERE CATALOGUED.

Let it not be supposed that we had given no thought to our companions in exile during our two weeks' probation in Baigol. The professor and I had talked of them frequently, wondering whether they were alive or dead, and, if alive, where they were and what they were doing.

Our story had been punched out of our word-boxes for the benefit of the Baigols, but had not seemed to make much of an impression on Ocou, or on others who came to see us.

Now the sight of Gilhooly would add corroborative detail, and we harped on that key until Ocou promised to communicate directly with King Golbai, and find out what his wishes were in the matter.

As for the professor, he wanted to go roaming the four kingdoms looking for the other exiles, first visiting Baigadd and appropriating the motive power of the B.&B.I. system.

The most we could get from Ocou was a promise to learn his majesty's pleasure in our affairs; and while we were abiding the king's decision, other events took place which were of prime importance to us.

Ocou had a queer-looking machine borne to our "home circle," which was the humorous fashion in which the professor referred to our prison ring.

The machine was an upright shaft measuring some three feet in height. To its base was attached a golden cord several yards long and terminating in a small silver disk.

Professor Quinn and I were consumed with curiosity while this contrivance was being set up and made ready. We put a question through our word-boxes, but were only smiled at mysteriously.

Presently I was made to sit down, Turk fashion, while one of Ocou's attendants came to me and passed the silver disk over my head. One end of Ocou's baton had a black tip, the other a white.

As the disk passed over my head, Ocou rested the white tip of the baton on the pedestal. Instantly a slide flew out of the shaft's top bearing a painted ideograph.

The professor and I were not "up" in the Baigol ideographs, and were very much surprised at the actions of Ocou and his companions when they looked at the slide. They recoiled, stared at me suspiciously, and moved about me with caution.

I grabbed my word-box.

"What's the matter, anyhow?" I asked.

"We have just discovered that you are a robber," said Ocou.

"I am no robber here," I answered, "no matter what I was in the place I came from."

"Once a robber always a robber," retorted Ocou, "unless you touch the Bolla."

"Well, well!" murmured the professor, rubbing his hands delightedly over the pedestal and giving little heed to Ocou's remark. "What do you call this machine, Mr. Ocou?"

"That, sir," Ocou replied, "is a character indexograph. We find it very useful in cataloguing the natural tendencies of subjects of the realm."

He sighed.

"The number of indexographs in the kingdom is limited, and they have all been working overtime of late. This is the first opportunity we have had to use one on you and your friend. Now, professor, if you will oblige me."

The professor dropped down, the disk gliding over his bald head, and another ideograph shot into sight.

"Ah," murmured Ocou, reading the sign: 'philanthropist, scientist, a man to counsel with!' You'll do, sir; but your friend!"-and he shook his head sadly as he dropped his talking machine.

"I suppose," said I, watching Ocou and his attendants make off with the indexograph, "that I shall be kept within this circle indefinitely?"

"Let us hope not, Mr. Munn," rejoined the professor, laying a kindly hand on my arm. "Rather let us hope that you will experience a moral rejuvenation, so that when the indexograph is tried on you at another time it will show a different result."

"I wish they would try that thing on J. Archibald Meigs!" I exclaimed. "The Baigols would find, I think, that I have no monopoly on that particular ideograph."

The professor laughed quietly.

"Let us see what comes to us now after we have been catalogued," said he. "I think they have simply been waiting to make trial of our tendencies before allowing us to pass out of this enchanted circle."

Ocou came back in a couple of hours, carrying a roll of parchment in addition to his baton. He came alone.

"Gentlemen," said he in his mechanical way, "your names have been entered and tagged. In accordance with the information secured through the indexograph, a task has been set for you. Perform that task faithfully and you are to have the freedom of the realm."

"What is the task, Mr. Ocou?" inquired the professor.

"You are to restore the sacred Bolla to his majesty, the king of Baigol."

"And what is the Bolla?"

"It is the stone of happiness and peace. Merely to touch it restores a mortal to health, physical and moral. Crime is a contagious disease, and since the Bolla has been lost to us and untouched of any in the kingdom, lawlessness has become widespread."

"Where is the Bolla?"

"It was loaned some seasons ago to the king of Baigadd, who now refuses to return it. As Baigadd is a more powerful country than ours, it would be an act of destruction for us to make war for the stone. So our king has graciously decreed that Mr. Munn shall proceed to the neighboring kingdom and steal the Bolla, taking you along with him, professor, as adviser and general aide."

Nothing could have pleased us more.

As I have stated elsewhere in this narrative, stealing property from some one to whom that property does not rightfully belong can hardly be accounted a crime; and when property thus purloined is restored to its rightful owner, the theft is transformed into a high and noble act.

Such a task filled me with enthusiasm, and I was ready to go forth among the four-handed enemies of Baigol and demonstrate my abilities. The professor, thinking of Gilhooly, would have welcomed any undertaking which carried him into the neighboring realm.

Ocou told us that the king of Baigadd was a very grasping individual, although he was very careful to abstain from touching the Bolla. Had he touched the wonderful stone, so great was its power that he would have experienced a change of heart immediately, and could not have shirked returning the property to its rightful owner.

King Gaddbai was very wealthy, according to Ocou, drawing his revenues principally from the kaka industry, of which he had a monopoly. Ka was a fibrous plant from which kaka, the only cloth known in the four kingdoms, was made.

This plant would grow nowhere else than in Baigadd, so that the people of the other three kingdoms had to go to Baigadd for their kirtles. Every time the king of Baigadd suffered a pecuniary backset, or donated a large sum to charity, he recouped his exchequer by boosting the price of kirtles.

There was a time, Ocou declared, when all the inhabitants of Njambai went clothed from neck to heels, but wardrobes dwindled as the price of cloth rose. Very few people could now afford the luxury of a full suit; and since the upper half of the body could not be covered with a garment, it was covered with paint-the paint being usually of a color to match or harmonize with the kirtle.

A variety of black kaka was the only serviceable material to be had for writing purposes, ideographs being traced on its surface with white ink. We were told how gentlemen once wealthy, but who had fallen upon evil days, had drawn upon their libraries for wearing apparel.

Books of poetry, essays, travel, fiction, all yielded their leaves to the making of various garments, thereby clothing the body as comfortably as they had already clothed the mind.

What could be more apropos than a morning gown inscribed with choice ideographic sonnets? Or a student's robe begemmed with the brilliant wit of an essayist? Or a traveling costume bearing an account of some voyage of discovery?

The only fault to be found with this arrangement was that such clothing advertised the wearer's poverty; and in Njambai, as in Terra, the pride of wealth was most pronounced.

King Gaddbai, it appeared, had so enhanced the cost of black kaka that literature lay languishing. Writers had not the requisite material on which to inscribe their thoughts, and the four kingdoms were threatened with a blight of ignorance.

From what we heard of King Gaddbai, the professor and I were not disposed to regard him very favorably. He seemed a greedy and unscrupulous person, more than ready to swell his coffers by trampling on the rights and the welfare of others.

The parchment roll brought by Ocou was a map, showing us how to direct our steps in order to reach Baigadd. Ocou also delivered to us a royal banner, direct from the hands of King Golbai, which was to procure us favor en route and entitle us to be received and cared for as ambassadors when we reached the other kingdom.

The professor asked for a baton, but this was denied him. The Baigols feared, I suppose, to trust such a terrible weapon in the hands of aliens.

The professor's pleasure over the prospect of being allowed to leave our prison ring and journey in search of our friends while seeking the Bolla was marred somewhat by Ocou's revelations.

He had hoped to find Njambai free of monopoly and greed, and yet here was King Gaddbai boosting the price of kaka whenever the whim struck him; and he had hoped to find a people where poverty was unknown, and yet he discovered how the educated were obliged to raid their libraries in order to cover their nakedness.

"Human nature, professor," I expounded, "is the same all over the universe. If a man finds himself in a position to gouge his neighbor, he is as apt to do it on Jupiter, or Mercury, as he is on Terra."

"I am grievously discouraged," he sighed.

"Furthermore," said I, "my practicing on the word-box could not have caused the havoc you imagined it might. Ocou tells us that, since the Bolla has been taken from Baigol, lawlessness has been widespread, and increasing."

"Your rehearsal of the false sentiments contained in your book may have helped on the lawlessness. I am more sorry than I know how to express in finding, among this gifted people, some of the worst elements of our own civilization. And my regret is the more pronounced on the score of Popham, Meigs, Gilhooly, and Markham."

"How do they figure in your disappointment?" I queried.

"Can't you understand?" he cried. "I had the same hopes of them that I had of you. Suppose we found on this planet not a trace of monopoly or greed; suppose we had found here a peace-loving, justice-serving people, with plenty to eat and wear, needing no laws to govern them, and all happy and contented. The moral effect upon you and the rest of our friends would have been uplifting. You would have seen, admired and coveted the same conditions for our own orb. A change would have been worked in you, and for the better.

"That," he went on passionately, "is the full measure of my disappointment. So far from finding such conditions, Mr. Munn, you are immediately catalogued as a thief, and given a task commensurate with your supposed abilities-a task or robbery!"

"But a righteous robbery," I averred. "Recovering stolen property and returning it to the rightful owner is a meritorious act."

"We must call it so," he answered bitterly, "since so much hangs upon our joint attempt. But what a lesson for these poor, benighted people!"

"The ability to get the stone is beyond them, and they call upon us," I pursued. "Their action is flattering, rather than otherwise. If we succeed, it means that we shall stand even higher in their estimation."

"We, who ought to know better, are making ourselves living examples of successful thievery."

"The end justifies the means, professor."

"We must strive to think so."

"I suppose Gilhooly has been catalogued, the same as you and I, and that he was found to stand so high in traction affairs that they--"

"Let us not dwell upon poor Gilhooly."

"He is just where he ought to be," I declared. "I only wish he had a glimmering of sense still left him in order that he might realize his position. The effect would be salutary."

This frank expression of my views rather startled Professor Quinn. He walked back and forth, his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed in deep thought.

"The indexograph is a most remarkable invention," he finally observed, "and would be of inestimable value on our native planet. The detection of crime would be an easy matter, and on the testimony of the indexograph alone justice could be meted out without the intermediate application of the courts. Furthermore, justice would never miscarry."

"I hope," I exclaimed in a panic, "that I shall never live to see the day when the police officials of Terra are equipped with indexographs! It would prove a knockout blow for my profession. Every citizen would be tested, and his proclivities jotted down in black and white."

"That would mean," expanded the professor, "that crime would be relegated to the limbo of lost arts! Before a lawless act could be committed, the artist in crime would be placed where the deed would be impossible."

"That's the way I figure it out, professor."

"But that is not the least of the indexograph's merits. Children could be duly catalogued, and, if they showed criminal tendencies, could be sent to institutions for proper moral training. The inclination of the young toward certain trades could be learned, and they could be given instruction along the line which would best serve their future careers. There would not be so many failures in life, Mr. Munn."

"Perhaps not," I answered stubbornly, "but I still maintain that the overturning of our customary standards would land us in chaos."

"Tut!" he exclaimed half angrily. "Some day, I trust, your angle of vision will change materially. Until that time, Mr. Munn, it would be well for you to repress your peculiar views, for, you are going to be sorry for them."

Just three weeks to a day from the time we reached Baigol we fared forth from the royal city, bent upon the performance of our mission. We were armed only with our word-boxes, the king's standard, and a firm determination to achieve our liberty by securing the Bolla, no matter what the cost.

Our journey led us through a pleasant country, level for the most part and covered with irrigated fields growing the white blossoms which the Baigols gathered and cooked for food. The king's will, as made known by the banner, secured us rest by the way.

I have not considered it necessary to refer to the fact that there was light and darkness throughout the kingdoms of Baigol and Baigadd during each period of twenty-four hours and three minutes. Light and heat were sent through the under-world by means of the two huge reflectors already mentioned, and when the sun passed from the heavens of course night fell.

But the climate was at all times delightful. We were armored against the temperature, and could not ourselves experience the equable air, yet our eyes and ears assured us of its presence, and this proved another surprise for the professor.

By day we traveled and by night we rested, often covering as many as five hundred spatli in a single day. Four days, at that rate, were to carry us to the capital of the other kingdom.

I gathered much wisdom from the professor as we journeyed, and there were two of our conversations which made a deep impression on me. The first had to do with the reflectors that turned the sun's rays into the bowels of the planet.

"Without the sun, Mr. Munn," remarked Quinn, indicating the white fields beside us with a gesture of the hand, "there could be no vegetable life in Baigol. Those fields must be quickened to life by the solar rays or they would be as barren as the outer shell of the planet. Finite ingenuity may always be trusted to accommodate itself to its environment. I can set the astronomers of Terra right on one mystery, at least."

"What mystery do you refer to, professor?" I asked.

"Why," he answered, "a luminous point has been detected by earthly telescopes on the disk of Mercury. The phenomenon has been explained as a huge mountain, whose top reflects the sun; yet it is only one of the great reflectors fabricated by these ingenious people."

Then at another time:

"Professor," said I, "have you made any discoveries relative to that powerful little weapon which the Baigols know so well how to use?"

"A few," he answered. "The baton is called a zetbai, and its ammunition is drawn from a peculiar ingredient of the atmosphere. The white tip of the zetbai furnishes the destructive force, while the black tip combats and nullifies it. The inhabitants of this orb, Mr. Munn, have a weapon of such awful power in the zetbai that a dozen of their number, armed with the batons, could descend upon our own globe and devastate it.

"Well is it for Terra that means are lacking for interplanetary communication; otherwise the Baigols and their fellow-creatures might prove the Napoleons of the universe. Such a contingency is terrible to contemplate."

"Had the zetbai anything to do with that invisible power that stayed us from crossing the circular wall?"

"It had everything to do with that. An unseen barrier was placed around us-a barrier of zet, drawn from the atmosphere by these Baigols and made to serve their ends. Unlike powder and ball, which destroy themselves in creating destruction, zet is indestructible; it can be regathered into the zetbai and used over and over again. The resisting medium, controlled by the black tip of the baton, is alone powerful to annul the energy of the white tip."

These were the points that impressed me. Another which we discussed, but which did not appeal to me as logical or accurate, had to do with the object of our quest-the Bolla.

"With all due respect to Mr. Ocou," said I, "he was certainly talking moonshine when he described the Bolla."

"I would not go so far as to say he was talking moonshine, Mr. Munn," the professor answered. "There are stranger things in Heaven, Earth, and Mercury than are dreamed of in our philosophy. Take yourself, for instance. You are a sick man--"

"Never sick in my life," I declared.

"I mean morally," went on Quinn. "If crime is a disease, you will admit, I think, that you are sick."

"No," I averred, "I am healthy in mind and body. I take no stock in Mr. Ocou's assertions-which ought to prove that I am mentally sound, I take it. But we'll get this palladium, just the same, for our liberty depends on it."

Toward noon of the fourth day, as we drew near the boundaries of Baigadd, we entered a rocky and uneven country, the well-defined road we had been following cutting and circling through the low hills. When we were well in among the bowlders a frantic shout reached us from around a bend in the road a few spatli ahead.

"That was a cry in our own tongue, Mr. Munn!" exclaimed the professor, coming to a halt. "Did you not hear it? It was certainly a call for help."

"You are right, sir," I answered. "That was a lusty English yell, if I ever heard one."

"It was given by one of our friends, of course."

"No doubt; it is not hard to distinguish a human voice from the bleat of one of these Baigol word-boxes. Possibly the new motive power of the B.&B. Interplanetary has rebelled and is fleeing this way."

"No," answered the professor excitedly, "I do not think that shout came from Gilhooly. It was-- Ah, Mr. Meigs!"

At that instant, J. Archibald Meigs came bounding into sight around the bend. But he was not the well-groomed, richly appareled Mr. Meigs of Earth and the steel car. His only garment was a kirtle.

He must have been surprised at seeing us, but so great was his fear that he did not show it. Panic left no room for any other emotion.

"Quinn! Munn! Save me-save me from the soldiers!"

A few dozen prodigious leaps brought him trembling to our vicinity, and he fell exhausted to his knees.