The process of ablution having been completed, before the sun reached its meridian, not only the new arrivals, with resident intention, but the members of the corps, appeared in the lower fora dressed in Manatitlan costume, which had been prepared for the occasion by the Heracleans in commemoration of full adoption. The effect produced by the change can be comprehensively expressed in the whispered announcement of Lovieta and Lavoca as they regarded with admiring eyes the improvement made in the personnel of Don Guillermo when raised in his arms for affectionate congratulation. “Oh! Don Guillermo, you look, and we feel so nice and light, we could almost fly back to mamma and papa to make them glad with happiness.” Then pointing to a group of Heraclean matrons they asked, “Do they ever fly?”
Don Guillermo. “Oh yes, in thought to make others happy, they are always in flight, and it is that which makes you feel so light and joyous.”
Lovieta. “But shall we always feel so good, and grow to be like them?”
Don G. “Yes, we are certain that you will, because you are disposed to be glad for the happiness of others, and measure your desires with the wish that you may be useful in contributing to the welfare of others for the return of their affection.”
Lavoca (thoughtfully). “But will it last, Querido Don Guillermo? At home we were sometimes so glad, and then [sadly] so very, very miserable.”
406Don G. “But you see before you those whose examples never change, but to grow brighter and happier. When you grow more thoughtfully considerate, you will feel that what you lack in attainment, others older and more experienced will impart from their affection. Then in grateful transfer you can assist those more inexperienced than yourself. Of one thing you can be certain, there will be no Padre Molineros here to mar your happiness with bead-prayers, exactions, and penances.”
Lovieta. “Of course, we can’t now understand all that you wish to have us know, but we shall try hard to learn, with thought, how to make others happy, that their love may teach us more than we know ourselves, so that you can see when you come to visit us that we have neither been idle or naughty. But now we can’t make much of ourselves, we do so many things without thinking, and then are sorry after it can’t be helped. But look, what are they bringing that table with the queer thing on the end of it, out here for?”
Don G. “The instrument that excites your curiosity, enables us to see and converse with the Manatitlans; but farther than that I am as much in the dark as you are. We shall soon see, however.”
After a short pause occupied in arranging the tympano-microscope, the Dosch from the auricular platform said, “According to our custom, practiced from time immemorial, the sanction of parents in confirmation of the marriage unity of their children, has been deemed and proved sufficient for the affectionate realization of unity in fact. But as your race of enlightened progressives have substituted shadow for substance, as an act of conformity, in the lack of anointed priestcraft I have volunteered to act as an officiating sponsor. If the pr?tor sanctions my assumption, he can, with his wife, first bestow their daughters according to our custom, and then I will 407duplicate the gift with formulistic rites, so that there can be no question with regard to the ‘orthodoxy’ of the union.”
To the glad surprise of M. Hollydorf, the parents bestowed Luocuratia to his keeping, and Correliana to Captain Greenwood’s, in the same breath. Then, when the sun had entered upon its meridian radius of ascension, free from shadow, in the still hour of noontide when all nature was hushed for repose, without inductive explanation, after the pr?tor had placed his children in position, Manito and his choristers, in full chorus chanted the nuptial ceremony with impressive effect, the Heracleans joining in response.
“Here beneath the vertical sun,
Without shadow, you are plighted,
And with us now, in love are one,
And forever, ‘soul’ united.
“With Creative sanction, this, we ever pray,
May prove your present joy, and immortal stay.
Hail, glorious noon! these, our notes of love prolong,
And echo back with joy, this our nuptial song.”
Although arranged by the Dosch and pr?tor as a surprise, known to all except the espoused, they quickly, with blissful perception discovered the intention, and joined with thrillful zest Manito’s choristers, who made the tympanum reverberate with the following hopeful prophecy and refrain:—
“‘Old Lang Syne,’ in bloody record rules the past;
In the future, love and peace are now forecast.
Blessings have source, and flow from power Supreme,
Goodwill to all, now sounds the glorious theme.
Through the smallest of the human race,
Was delegated this act of ‘grace.’”
At the close of the marriage ceremony, the Dosch with his family quickly regained the foss? of Mr. Welson’s ears, the sinuosities of which were made to resound with the prophetic responses, causing the eyes of the owner thereof to turn with an instinctive 408strabism toward the organ subject to the impression of Manatitlan vocalism. While his eyes were in their retroverted position they attracted the attention of Lovieta and Lavoca, who had recalled their wondering gaze for curious inquiry, causing them to exclaim in a voice: “O Don Guillermo, what makes you squint so?” Then, without waiting for an answer, they continued, glancing at the reflected figures of the Manatitlans in the microscopic field, “How much larger your little folks are than ours, and how beautifully they sing.”
But Mr. Welson’s attention was too strongly diverted to give more than an abstracted answer to his pets. At the close of the prophetic jubilee, the Dosch answered, from the interpretation of Mr. Welson’s thoughts: “We do certainly feel, from the docility shown by the leading members of the corps, as if the wedge of rational thought had opened a passage through the cycled round of folly for the ejection of the many self-inflicted causes of misery, which have made life with your race a penal infliction. The educated substitution of thought for impulsive impression from the senses, which at present holds ruling sway, would interpose a shield to prevent the emblematic union of head and tail, for the vortex extinction of material civilization, and degradation for the re?nactment of savage barbarism through a long series of dark ages. There is certainly a happy forecast inaugurated by this union, which reminds us of our provincial success in raising human Animalculans to become in reality Animalcumans; a distinction which our neophytes are emulous of having conferred from self-approving merit. If it was not for the selfish fighting disposition of Christian nations and sects, which inclines them to instinctive patriotism and holy wars, advantage might be taken of their superstitious reverence for things ancient, to attract them hitherward as pilgrims, for their own behoof.”
409Here the ears of the Dosch caught the subdued tones of familiar voices, which from their peculiar method of construing terms he quickly recognized, causing him to expostulate in this wise: “I hear the voices of your old sailor companions, Jack and Bill; is it fitting that their honest sincerity should alone be welcomed by their Kyronese admirers? If their quaint, unsophisticated bluntness has been able to recognize the truthful simplicity of Heraclean example, it will prove a greater acquisition for the encouragement of hope than your own; as they represent a class embalmed with the stupidity of erratic animal indulgence, which subjects them to the vilest servitude ever imposed by the arbitrary few upon the unthinking masses of humanity. Indeed, with the exception of the self-imposed penalties of your Giga women’s vanity, they suffer more abjectly from the fiat of hereditary usage than the veriest slave that ever winced under the lash of the taskmaster.”
Mr. Welson and Dow soon added a glow of grateful contentment to the weather-beaten faces of the two sailors, by extending to them a cordial welcome, which was increased to manifestations of “weakness,” from the warmth of the Heracleans’ affectionate reception. There was something so uniquely attractive in the instinctive attachment of these strange beings, who had wandered away from their element, that they had enlisted a strong interest long before the possible existence of a human Animalcuman had been conjectured; or an idea of the practicability of a preferred affection had been suggested, in exaltation above the instinctive type rendered “famous” by the fabled “friendship” of the legendary Damon and Pythias. Mr. Welson had tested the fealty of their attachment in a variety of ways on board of the Tortuga, with a constant result in confirmation of its disinterested integrity.
Finding themselves the centre of attraction, which 410was seasoned with manifold tokens of affectionate sincerity, they were fain to have recourse to their “pocket-swabs, to clear the leakage from the run on scuppers of their eyes,” with an occasional sounding of their nostril pumps, to divert the emotional overflow from its natural course. Correliana, in a transparent glow of radiant joy, for the relief of their “filling condition, that water-logged” the speech of the “honest tars,” asked Jack in good English, if he did not prefer his present success in “drawing fire,” to the method he adopted with the Indians? The question produced a sudden revulsion, which Bill seconded with a nudge and a whisper, that could have been heard in a gale: “Say, Jack, her leddyship had you there with the pint of a marlin.”
Taken aback, Jack gave a short, subdued hitch to his waistband and mouth, and then replied, with the latter reefed into a smile: “You see, m’rm, your leddyship, w’re now on a peaceful tack, for w’ve come to sign the articles and enter our name as landsmen, if he cares to ship us at a venture, and take us in tow for the v’yage of life, and mayhap for t’ other.” Then hesitating, to gather courage, which was gained by an extra hitch of his waistband, he resumed: “You see, m’rm, if so be your father would ‘low us to splice, we’d like to port our helm in Heraclea for life.”
Understanding the tenor of the sailor’s petition, by the fond glances exchanged by himself and mate, with the two Kyronese maidens, who had attended upon them while acting as guards or gate-keepers, she addressed the Dosch in Latin, asking if it was agreeable to his judgment to have their request complied with; pleading her own assurance of their constancy from the disinterested affection they had shown toward each other. The Dosch not only expressed his full approbation, but desire that they should be immediately united. This decision receiving 411the pr?tor’s sanction, and willing approval of the maiden’s parents, and, above all, the blushing self-bestowal of the affiants, whose inclinations were consulted by Cleorita and Oviata, it was resolved to consummate the union at once, if the sun had not declined in its arc sufficient for the casting of a shadow. Placing them in position as quickly as possible, it was found that, with haste, the emblematic ceremony could be accomplished in a union without shadow. But when the sailors were asked for their family names, it was found that from long habit in using only their “Christian” names in addressing each other, they were at a loss in deciding to which of the surnames, Smith or Jones, they were personally entitled from parental endowment, although aware that one or the other had been inherited as a nominal adjunct to Jack and Bill. As they could not recollect to which they were separately entitled, the Dosch, from the urgency of the emergency, was fain to accept the only alternative of the dilemma, and in the formulistic style, peculiar to Giga understanding, consummated the ties by propounding: “You, Bill Smith or Jones, in mutual troth do plight your vows in constancy for life to Anonymosimia Doycymba, and you, Jack Jones or Smith, yours to Meerisia Abdosia?”
The hearty “aye, aye, sir” of the male respondents, and the softer modulated, but firmly expressed “ai toi” of dames Jones or Smith, closed the involved nomenclature of the ceremony. The Dosch remarked, after regaining the ear of Mr. Welson, that although the courtship had been conducted in the entire absence of an understanding speech communication, their auramentors were fully assured that there existed a stronger instinctive attachment, in nearer approach to an independence from bodily influence, than is usually attained by civilized reciprocants from the advantage of a common language, inasmuch 412as it restrained the tongue from its “yarned” propensity for exaggeration, peculiar to its use with sailors, and the more decided truthful negation by the votaries of fashionable society. The assembly, at the conclusion of the second improvised marriage scene, joined in the recitative invocation and song of thanksgiving sub-transcribed:—
“In gladness we to our Creator raise
This grateful song, in everlasting praise,
That through Manatitla’s atomic life
He has ope’d a way to end human strife,
That in ‘wedlock,’ domestic joy
Shall brighter glow and never cloy.”
At the close of the hymn of invocation the Dosch dictated the advisory sanction adopted by the Manatitlans, which we give as rendered by the pr?tor: “In the full belief of your loving sincerity, we joyfully confirm this union with that of our children, hopefully believing that your affection will increase in fervor until death relieves you of your bodies’ encumbrance for the full consummation of a joyous immortality.”
The buzz and genealogical curators of sound were highly delighted with the harmony of the musical composition, declaring that its peculiar adaptation attested to the affectionate talent of a master spirit. The former, in enthusiastic approval, offered his warmest commendations to Manito, the Maniculan pr?tor; at the same time congratulating the Manatitlans in having possession of a musician of such eminent ability. Great was his chagrin and surprise, when Manito not only disclaimed the authorship, but stated that the merit of the poetical composition and musical adaptation belonged solely to his pupil, Mistress Correliana, of whose advancement and talent he was justly proud. The perturbed expression of Pettynose bespoke the revived memory of his former criticism, causing the padre to chuckle audibly from 413the recollection of the dogmatic snap he had received, when his suggested variation had abruptly closed the dulcetina improvisation. The blushing attention of Correliana was too much absorbed with the admiring surprise of her husband to heed the professor’s confusion. In explanation to him, she whispered that Manito had taught her how to use the dulcetina with the aid of the tympano-microscope, unbeknown to the members of the corps, and had also instructed her in the art of composition. Captain Greenwood had a strong passion for music, without vocal capacity for its expression. To compensate for his own deficiency, it had been his abiding desire to possess a wife with the talent he lacked, that she might impart its sympathetic solace for the relief of anxious care. This desire Correliana had intuitively discovered, which added a strong incentive for application, with the purpose of imparting her improvement to her people.
After the marriage confirmation by the pr?tor, Manito, through Mr. Welson, proposed to adjourn from the fora to the auriculum. On the way the Dosch passed to the ear of Captain Greenwood; his salutation caused a sudden start, with the motion of raising his hand, which Correliana detained; aware of the cause from the divergence of his eyes, she asked: “Do you recognize the voice of an old familiar?”
Her husband’s puzzled expression declared the nature of the communication, aside from his voiced expression as if in repetition, “Annette, harp, violin, dulcetina!” Correliana added to the sum of his perplexity by asking if the young woman having Don Pedro’s children in charge was the sole survivor of the unfortunates who received his assisting sympathy while in the extremity of their distress in Rio? Startled by a question that implied her knowledge of a secret which he supposed was only known to Annette and himself, he answered, inquiringly, “Yes?” Receiving 414from his wife a fond kiss of benediction, she asked: “Do you wonder that I discovered the source that gained you Manatitlan approval, with an affection so fearless in its sympathy while imparting its succoring rays of goodness? You wonder at my ready acquisition of your language and the source of my information? Do you suppose, with an innate perception of the unselfish sympathy which prompted you to solace the sufferings of those forlorn beings, who had afforded me protection at the cost of their kinsfolk’s lives, that I could remain content without perfecting myself for the full enjoyment of a languaged communion with your thoughts? The voice that startled your memory, was the prompting familiar’s, who attended you in Rio through the sad scenes, that in termination bequeathed the harp, violin, and dulcetina, as mementos to stimulate your unselfish affection for the devisement of means for the future relief of your race from the cause of such calamitous hereditaments.”
Tears glistened in the eyes of her husband as her loving sympathy brought back with graphic effect the scenes indelibly impressed upon his memory. Recovering from his emotions, he beckoned to Annette, who, attended by Mr. Welson, had held herself aloof from the newly wedded; quickly answering to his signal, she was introduced to his wife, who bestowed upon her a warm embrace as a prelude to more affectionate communion. Then in answer to his desire to listen in judgment of her proficiency, Cleorita and Oviata volunteered their service with Kyronese aids to bring the dulcetina, harp, and violin from the hospidor?. When the harp was attuned to the dulcetina, Annette, with ready ear and touch improvised an accompaniment to the simple air of an anthem of Correliana’s composition, at the same time watching her supposed self-taught success in the management of her father’s instrumental 415conception. From the first Annette’s pleasure became manifest, for Correliana retained the tenor of her composition independent of the harp. At the close of the instrumental duo, Annette highly commended her proficiency, giving her the desired assurance of capability for the attainment of unusual skill, both in vocal and instrumental music. Annette’s skillful instrumentation and melodious vocalization caused Dr. Baāhar to observe, naturalistically, that there was a sensible diminution in the length of the buzz and genealogical curators of sound’s musical horns. The pr?tor Manito was in ecstasies with the successful rendition of his pupil, and declared to his wife his intention of extending to Annette a kiss of welcome, out of his abounding love for her musical talent. Disappearing from our Giga eyes on the instant, but not from those of his wife, whose face mantled with a blush when she saw him in the very act of imprinting a kiss upon her lips, the recipient, with a vague impression, raised her hand and brushed it away. The Dosch remarking the effect produced upon Manito’s wife, said, that it was an apt illustration of jealousy, for it never considered the relative disproportion of the exciting objects. Manito’s next appearance upon the stage was under the lead of his wife’s thumb and forefinger, attached to his ear, while with assumed tartness, in strong Giga accent, she upbraided him for the impudent infidelity of the act. But her curiosity getting the better of her assumed indifference, she tauntingly exclaimed, “I suppose you found the unreciprocated stolen kiss from a single Giga lip more than equal in sweetness to two of ours prompted by conscious affection?” Slipping from her finger’s hold, he gave the flying answer: “Yes, truly, I found her lip as full in volume as the tones of her voice!”
Lovieta and Lavoca, who had witnessed this playful episode, whisperingly asked Mr. Welson: “Are 416these large ones related to the ear Manatitlans, and will they grow larger when they grow older?” But as his answer failed to satisfy their comprehension, they asked him, if they looked as pretty as the Manatitlans now that they were dressed like them? A caressing hand upon their heads proving a satisfactory reply, they declared it a moda linda, facil, y agradable a la vista, and in the Heraclean school, so nicely clothed, they felt sure that they should become good, graciosa, and would try to be as affectionate as the brides! In benediction, for the success of their good intentions, Mr. Welson bestowed commendatory kisses, and again placed them in charge of Cleorita and Oviata.
Anxious to read his letters, he, with the Dosch, retired to the quarters of the corps. After glancing at his formulistic letters of “friendship” and business,—which were closely interwoven,—under the supervision of the Dosch, who kept up a running commentary, in which he pointed out the prospective selfishness of each correspondent, in a manner so legible, their insincerity became so disgusting to the receiver that he laid them aside, wondering how he had allowed himself to be beguiled for a lifetime with such shadowy pretexts. The letter of Don Pedro Garcia, which he had reserved for the last, revived his hopeful trust in the latent goodness of humanity. We offer its chapter transcript for the benefit of the reader.