Chapter 9 LEARNING THE WORD-BOX.

It was not the violet fire that did the work for the professor and me. Rather it was some chemical, known to the Mercurials, and which manifested its presence by an overpowering odor.

Long after we had regained consciousness, the drug-like smell clung to our clothes and sapped our strength. Shackles of iron could not have been more effective in making us prisoners.

Cords were made fast to our feet, and we were dragged by a small army of Mercurials down the principal street of their city and out into one of the white, irrigated fields.

Had a dwelling been found large enough, I presume we should have been comfortably housed, but we were of such stupendous proportions that there were no walls capable of containing us.

When we reached the field, a ring a foot high was reared about us. As the odor lessened and my strength increased I tried to roll over this low barrier, but received such a shock that I was only too glad to roll back to the professor's side again.

"It is of no use, Mr. Munn," said the professor, who had been watching my attempt. "These Mercurials are possessed of ways and means beyond our earthly powers to combat. We must accept the situation with all the philosophy we can muster."

This great man, who could remain unshaken under any fate that befell him, was a constant source of strength and inspiration to me. While we lay forsaken by our captors and couched on the strange white herbage of that underground field, our discourse drifted along many channels.

I remember that I asked him a question concerning a matter that had long been weighing upon my mind.

"How is it, professor," said I, "that your anti-gravity compound remains in a liquid state in an open cask? I should think its inherent energy would cause it to fly upward en masse."

"I can demonstrate that by means of an algebraic formula," said he. "Are you acquainted with algebra?"

"No," I answered humbly.

"Then," he went on disappointedly, "I fear you will have to remain in ignorance. You must rest content with the evidence of your senses, since an explanation in terms you can understand is impossible."

And thus the matter rested. When we were so far recovered as to be able to rise, we made an attempt to step over the ring that hemmed us in, but were shocked by the same unseen power I had already encountered, and driven back.

"See with what weapons nature has provided these people!" murmured the professor. "Throughout the universe everywhere you will find, Mr. Munn, that Nature takes care of her own. Ah, here comes Captain Goldman! Retainers follow, and they are bringing-now, what are they bringing? Why, as I live, they have manufactured a couple of large word-boxes. Evidently we are to be taught the use of them."

The professor was right. Ever since our disastrous attempt to regain the surface we had been tabooed by the inhabitants of the country.

"Captain Goldman," as my companion referred to the little man who had used his mysterious baton with such telling effect, was crossing the fields toward us, followed by six of his countrymen bearing the talking machines. As a precautionary measure, the captain carried his weapon.

Arriving at the ring, Captain Goldman reversed the baton and with the black tip of it cut an imaginary doorway for himself in the air. He then stepped through and joined us, without shock or resistance.

Thus, by means to us inexplicable, he broke the power of the circle at a given point. The others followed him through the entrance he had cleared.

Wielding the baton with two of his hands, Captain Goldman began manipulating his word-box with the other two. He was not addressing us, however, but those who had come with him.

Three of his followers advanced to me with one of the machines, while the remaining three conveyed a machine to the professor. At once our instruction in the art of mechanical speech began.

It is not my intention to burden the readers with the details of our lessons, although a few remarks under this head may not be out of place. As to the word-box itself, it had seven keys. This made it somewhat difficult for a five-fingered creature to operate with any great degree of fluency, although the professor did get so he could peg out his ideas at a remarkable rate.

There are but six syllables in the Mercurial language, each syllable being represented by a corresponding key. The way these syllables were fingered gave the words. As they could be combined and repeated and combined again, the vocabulary of the boxes was practically unlimited. The syllable notes were of resonant quality and of such divergent timber as to be quickly and easily recognized. The syllable for Key 1 was synonymous with our personal pronoun "I," and was the most assertive and determined note in the whole gamut of the box.

The seventh key emitted a sound so utterly unlike the other sounds as to be in a class by itself. It was used for spacing between words, for exclamatory purposes and for the audible expression of laughter and grief.

It was likewise the expletive or swear-key; for these small egotists had all the passions of other mortals, and Key 7 acted as a sort of safety valve. The manner in which the key was used gave it its versatility.

Day by day our lessons proceeded, the professor learning with a rapidity that was marvelous. He was well along in the polysyllables while I was struggling with the basic tones and acquiring some facility in spacing and in the expression of the feelings.

Our ears kept pace with our fingers, and in a fortnight the professor was so eloquent with his word-box that he could now and then play off a metaphor, or some other frill, to the great delight of himself and his auditors.

Next to a wonderful jimmy invented by a cracksman named "Cricket" Doniphan, whom I knew well, and who, at that period, was doing time in Stillwater, I take off my hat to that Mercurial word-box as the most marvelous contrivance ever evolved by a thinking mind. I have a very good memory, and when sufficiently proficient with the keys I practiced by repeating passages from "Forty Ways of Cracking Safes," which, as distinguished from "The Sandbagger's Manual," I considered my chef d'oeuvre. I could not discover that my terse English, faulty enough though it was, lost anything in force from translation into the Mercurial tongue. (The word "tongue" is used with reservations, for, of course, tongue that language was not.)

Difficulty was experienced in getting a suitable Mercurial equivalent for the good English word "cracksman." Finally, however, I hit upon three quick touches of the swear-key, which made the word intelligible in my own ears if not to any one's else.

Soon I began to observe a little throng gathering across my side of the prison ring, listening intently as I practiced. From day to day the throng increased.

Over on the other side of the ring Professor Quinn was absorbed in cutting all manner of scientific capers with his word-box. "The Mutability of Newtonian Law" formed his staple theme, and he was able to put it through the keys with amazing variations.

But no crowd gathered to listen to the professor. The Mercurials were all on my side of the compound. Thus it was clear to me that my brand of science was more attractive to the little people than the professor's. While "The Mutability of Newtonian Law" languished for an audience, "The Sandbagger's Manual" was fast acquiring one that taxed the capacity of the word-box.

The professor, for a long time, had been so wrapped up in his attempt to master the Mercurial language that he had paid little heed to me and my efforts. The attention my work was securing, however, finally caused him to sit up and take notice. Halting his weighty remarks, he laid aside his talk machine, came over to my side of the circle, and stood behind me, listening. The first I knew of his presence was the reaching of two angry hands over my head and the snatching away of the instrument on which I was, at that moment, reciting the ten rules for a cracksman's success.

My audience was as greatly put out as I was myself. While I was leaping to my feet and whirling around, my listeners were clamoring on their word-boxes for me to proceed.

Professor Quinn, white-faced and in a greater temper than I had ever before seen him, held my talking apparatus over his head and seemed of a mind to clash it down on the earth at his feet.

"I say, professor," I called restrainingly, "don't do anything rash."

"Mr. Munn," he gasped, his voice thick with suppressed emotion, "is my confidence in you to be destroyed utterly? I singled you out as one of the worthiest of all those brought from Terra, and yet I find you busily inculcating false ideas of personal property into the keen minds of these Mercurials! For shame, sir! Would you demoralize this planet? Would you turn these law-abiding people into thieves?"

"Professor," I answered, "your ideas and mine do not harmonize on this matter of property rights."

"While I admit, Mr. Munn," he answered, "that conditions on our own planet in a measure condoned your actions, yet I maintain that you have no right to air your ideas in Njambai. Here the conditions are of an altogether different sort. So far as I have been able to learn, this orb has not fallen under the noxious spell of the monopolists. You have no excuse for instructing the Mercurials in the alpha and omega of your contemptible profession."

"Contemptible?" I repeated. "That is a hard term, professor. Besides, they seem to be fond of the instruction. Everybody listens to me, while you haven't had so much as a corporal's guard to enjoy that astronomical stuff you have been playing off on your concertina."

"Your line, perhaps, is more attractive than mine," and the shadow of a smile curled about his thin lips, "for the notion of getting something for nothing has a direct appeal to every thinking being. On the other hand, my thesis on 'The Mutability of Newtonian Law' requires profound thought before it can be assimilated. Yet, be that as it may, I shall not allow you to degrade these people with the unworthy ideas that have been coming from your word-box. I can destroy this machine, sir, and I shall do so unless you promise never again to let an ignoble thought come out of it. What do you say?"

"Your mere command is enough, professor," I replied. "It is not necessary to couple it with a threat."

His face softened, and he at once returned to me my talk-producer.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Munn," said he. "I have confidence in your word, and know that I can trust you."

Thereupon he went back to his own side of the ring, and I applied myself assiduously to undoing any evil my ill-considered practicing may have wrought. I told the Mercurials that my utterances had been in the nature of a fairy story, and I gave the lie to my convictions by declaring that the reasoning, as in all fairy tales, was unsound.

From that hour my audiences vanished. The professor, although his talk was profound and somewhat wearying, seemed to the Mercurials as more worth while, and they flocked to hear him. We began acquiring a knowledge of the country, and of its people and institutions, with our very first lesson. In two weeks we had gathered most of the information that follows:

Their planet they called Njambai; their country was Baigol. Baigol was one of four kingdoms comprising the under-world of Njambai. The other three kingdoms were Baijinkz, Baigossh, and Baigadd-all derived from the root word "bai," signifying planet.

There were only two places on Njambai where water was able to collect and defy the absorbing power of the sun. These places were at the two ends of the planet's axis, corresponding to the polar regions of Earth. Here there were seas feeding rivers that ran through the under-world and irrigated the fields.

The kingdoms of Baijinkz and Baigossh lay on the shores of these seas, the former at the north and the latter at the south. They were the only kingdoms on the outer shell of Njambai, and levied tribute from the interior kingdoms of Baigol and Baigadd for water rights.

The distribution of light and heat throughout the nether kingdoms was by a system of gigantic reflectors, located at either end of a radius drawn through the equator. There was one stupendous reflector on either side of the planet, measuring no less than twenty spatli across-a spatl being the equivalent of a geographical mile.

These reflectors, we were told, followed the sun as it moved through the heavens, and reflected heat and light to countless other reflectors ingeniously placed to acquire and radiate the solar energy.

The heat thus secured was further intensified by the planet's shell, which, forming the vault of the nether kingdoms, constantly diffused warmth.

The king was Golbai, the nine hundred and twenty-fifth of his line. The name of the pompous gentleman whom the professor had christened "Captain Goldman" was Ocou.

Names of people, places, and things, as here given, are simply a rude equivalent as nearly as can be rendered into English.

From my wording the astute reader will probably discover more than the six basic syllables of the Baigol language. The flexibility of the word-box will account for this, and the inconsistency is only seeming and not real.

Baigol had one half the inner sphere, and Baigadd the other half. These two kingdoms were not on the best of terms, owing to a wretched piece of business carried out by Gaddbai, king of the other country, which will be adverted to later.

The four kingdoms were connected by a railway, if such the mode of transportation could be called. The roadbed was a "V"-shaped groove, and the wheels of the cars were solid spheres with axles pierced through their diameter. On these axles the carriages were supported.

For a people so wonderfully progressive the Baigols were strangely backward in their motive power, their trains being dragged by hand-relays of the small creatures taking them in charge.

Owing to the diminished force of gravity, large weights were easily handled, and a fair rate of speed was developed by the train haulers. But it was a very primitive method of transportation.

The trunk line connecting the nether kingdoms was known as the Baigadd and Baigol Interplanetary System. When two weeks of our enforced stay in Baigol had passed, a startling rumor was wafted from the word-boxes of the other kingdom to the effect that the management of the line had secured a wonderful new traction power of tremendous speed and unlimited endurance.

The kingdom of Baigol was agog with excitement, for the president, vice-president, and board of directors of the Interplanetary were to take a trial spin over the road in a special equipped with their new motive power.

We had not yet been allowed to leave the mysterious circle which imprisoned us, but we could stand erect, and so overtop the fields and houses that we were able to see the railway station.

Billiard balls came rolling in from every direction, clustering about the right of way and clambering to roof tops and other elevations that would afford an unobstructed view of the centre of excitement.

At last, far off, the professor and I heard a thunderous shout:

"Toot, t-o-o-t! Ting-a-ling-a-ling!"

No word-box could have been the source of that echoing cry. The professor gave a gasp and clutched my arm convulsively.

"Do you recognize that voice?" he asked hoarsely. "Merciful powers, Mr. Munn, how could such a thing happen? Look! Look!"

Over the fields beyond the city, leaping along at fifty-foot bounds and dragging behind him a train of queer-looking cars crowded with officials of the system, came no less a person than Emmet Gilhooly!

The professor threw himself at the barrier that hedged us round. He could not pass, although he struggled frantically.

"Take it coolly, professor," I urged, grasping and holding him upright.

"But this is outrageous, Mr. Munn!" he cried. "Poor Gilhooly! Is he the new traction power the other kingdom has been talking about? How does he happen to be here? And why are they treating him like that? This must be stopped! Where's my word-box?"

His eyes swept the ground. Glimpsing his talking machine he dived for it and began working the keys like mad.

No one paid any attention to the furious language that went up under his frenzied fingers, however. Leviathan in harness absorbed the entire attention of all the Baigols, and with another "Toot, toot! Ting-a-ling-a-ling!" the railway magnate galloped out of sight.

It was a sad spectacle indeed. I was almost as completely unmanned by it as was Professor Quinn.