_ CHAPTER XVI. AN UNLIKELY STORY
"If the doctor," I said, "will pardon me, I will say, in relation to the origin of meteorites, that our scientific men have held from time to time many different theories. Some have believed that they are aggregations of metallic vapors which, meeting in the atmosphere, solidify there and fall, just as watery vapors solidify and come down in the form of hailstones. Others have held that they are thrown out from the center of the earth by volcanic action; and others still that they all came from the moon when her volcanoes were active. These latter theories imply that the meteorites in immense quantities are revolving around the earth, and that occasionally they become entangled in her atmosphere and fall to the surface.
"And now, Thorwald, I am tempted to repay all your great kindness to us with an act of ingratitude, nothing less than the relation of a story."
This rather foolhardy speech of mine made the doctor wince, and I am not sure but he began to fear that my mind was weakening in a new direction. But I had my own excuse for my action, which I felt that I could explain to him at some future time. The fact is, I was so disturbed in my mind about Mona and was anticipating so much from meeting the so called Avis, that I thought I could never sit still all the morning and listen to a dry scientific discussion. It seemed to me that I could stand it better if I could do part of the talking myself, and so I took advantage of the subject before us to propose relating an extravagant tale that I once had heard.
In contrast with the doctor's frowns, Thorwald showed a lively appreciation and insisted that I should be heard.
"Not another word from me," he said, "till we have had the story."
With such encouragement, it was easy for me to proceed.
"I fear you will be disappointed," I said, "for what I have rashly called a story is only a fancy founded on the idea that the meteorites were at some time shot out of the volcanoes of the moon. I had it from a friend of mine, whose mind is evidently more open to the notion of life in other worlds than is that of my companion here. As the story was written long before the moon came down to visit the people of the earth in their own home, the writer did not have the advantage of the discoveries made by the doctor and myself, and it is well for me that the doctor's friend, Mona, is not here to disprove any of my statements.
"On account of the smaller volume of the moon, the attraction of gravitation on its surface is only one-quarter that of the earth, and it is estimated that, if a projectile were hurled from the moon with two or three times the velocity of a cannon ball, it would pass entirely beyond her attraction and be drawn to the earth, reaching it at the rate of some seven miles a second.
"Now we all know--this is the way the story runs--that the moon was once inhabited by a highly intelligent race. They tell us it is a cold, dead world now, not at all fit for inhabitants. But that is because its day is passed. Being so much smaller than the earth it cooled off quicker, and its life-bearing period long since found its end. Men have often speculated on the idea that our race will one day fail and the time come when the last generation shall pass away and leave the earth a bare and ugly thing, to continue yet longer its lonely, weary journey around a failing sun. That day the moon has seen. That direful fate the race of moon men have experienced. Some poor being, the last of his kind, was left sole monarch of a dying world, and with the moon all before him where to choose, chose rather to die with the rest and leave his world to cold and darkness.
"From our own experience we do not know how high a state of civilization can be reached by giving a race all the time that is needed. But we know that before the inhabitants of the moon passed off the stage they had attained to the highest possible degree of intelligence. They began existence at a very low plane, developed gradually through long periods of time--there has never been any haste in these matters--and when they had reached their maturity as a race of intellectual and moral beings, primitive man was just beginning on the vast undertaking of subduing the earth, a task not yet accomplished.
"The incident I propose to relate occurred in antediluvian times, when there were giants in the earth who lived a thousand years. Then matter reigned, not mind. It was the age of brawn. Everything material existed on a gigantic scale, and man's architectural works, rude in design but well adapted for shelter and protection, were proportioned to his own stature and rivaled the everlasting hills in size and solidity. And they needed something substantial for protection, for war was their business and their pass time. They lived for nothing but to fight. It was brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor, tribe against tribe; and the man who could not fight, and fight hard, had no excuse for living. War was not an art, but a natural outburst of brutal instincts. A giant glories in his strength and cultivates it as naturally as a bird its song. But it is pleasant to consider the fact that as man's mental and moral qualities have developed his body has become smaller. As the necessity for that immense physical strength gradually passed away, nature, abhorring such unnecessary waste of material, applied to us her inexorable laws whereby a thing or a state of things no longer useful slowly fades away, and our bodies accommodated themselves to new conditions.
"But in those early times men needed great physical strength and long life to bring the world into subjection, and until that was done they could give little attention to the cultivation of the finer qualities of their incipient manhood. They were handicapped by the fact that the lower animals had had the earth to themselves a few million years, more or less, and no puny race could ever have driven them to the wall.
"At length, when the conflict was well nigh over, with victory in sight, men had abandoned the struggle and were using all their fierce strength in fighting each other. This had been going on so long and with such deadly results that it seemed as if the race must be exterminated unless some superior power could step in from the outside and prevent it.
"We can easily understand that there was no such thing as science then. Men considered the sun, for example, only as a very useful thing which brought them light with which they could see their foe, and the moon as a mysterious object sent to make the night a little less dark. Sun and moon and shining stars were all set in the sky for them, and went through their wonderful and complicated movements solely for their amusement.
"But what was the real condition of things on the moon at that time? Why, there was a race of people there of such intelligence and scientific attainments that they were seeing plainly enough everything that was taking place on the earth. This will not appear very strange when we consider our remarkable success in scanning the surface of the moon at the present day, and remember that the inhabitants of the moon were then nearing the close of their history, and so at the height of their civilization.
"Yes, they had watched the coming of man upon the stage with the deepest interest--with a neighborly interest, in fact--seeing in him the promise of a companion race and one worthy of the magnificent globe which they could see was so much larger than their own. Their powerful instruments enabled them to see objects on the earth as distinctly as we now see through our telescopes the features of a landscape a few miles distant.
"Keeping thus so close an acquaintance with man and all his works, they rejoiced at every success he achieved over the lower forms of life, and grieved at all his failures. Especially were they pained when he tired of the conflict with his natural foe, and began to battle with his own kind. As this inhuman strife continued, the folly and wickedness of it roused to the fullest extent the interest and sympathy of the moon-dwellers, and they began to ask each other what they could do to put a stop to it. They themselves had long since given up war and had even outgrown all individual quarrels, and they could not endure with patience what was then taking place right under their eyes. But they found it easier to declaim against the evil than to suggest any practical method of stopping it. Although so near them in one sense, to the other senses the field of conflict was some two hundred and forty thousand miles away.
"However, of what value is a high state of civilization if it cannot help a neighboring world in such an emergency as this? If they could only communicate in some way with men they could soon make them understand that it would be better for them to cease their fighting and finish their legitimate work of subduing the lower forms of creation. But how to open communication! The problem long remained unsolved, the condition of things on the earth in the meantime growing worse and worse. At last it was suggested that a shot might be fired which would reach the earth. This was a bold suggestion, but it was well known that they had explosives powerful enough to carry a projectile beyond the moon's attraction, and no one could give any good reason why such a projectile, being entirely free of the moon, should not reach the earth under the power of gravitation. It was determined to try the experiment, and after due preparation, which was comparatively easy with their facilities, an enormous shot was hurled forth. It was large enough to be seen by the aid of their powerful telescopes as it sped on its way, and it was with intense interest that they saw it enter the earth's attraction and finally strike the surface of that globe. Now that so much had been accomplished, they saw immense possibilities before them. What they now wanted to do was to use their discovery to make men give up their fighting and turn to the arts of peace.
"How could they do this? Some proposed that they should make hollow shot, fill them with Bibles and other books, and bombard the earth with good precepts till men should learn and be tamed. But from their close observation of mankind the moon-dwellers knew they were too uncivilized to get any good from books, and that they certainly could not learn without a teacher. Hence arose the suggestion that missionaries be sent in place of books. As soon as this idea was broached thousands of volunteers offered themselves, and the plan would certainly have been attempted if there had been the slightest possibility that one could live to reach the earth.
"The next proposal came from the medical profession. Long before this time, when the inhabitants of the moon were sometimes governed by their passions and before the day of peace and good will had fully arrived, it had been discovered that what was known as the pugnacious instinct was only a disease, bad blood in fact as well as in name, and a remedy had been found for it. This was nothing less than the bi-chloride of comet. Small comets, such as we call meteorites, were picked up on the surface of the moon and put to this practical use. This medicine, administered as an hypodermic injection, produced wonderful effects, the patient, although afflicted with the most quarrelsome disposition, becoming as mild and harmless as a lamb. However warlike one might be, a few days' treatment would take the fighting spirit out of him so completely that the mere doubling up his fists and placing them in front of his face would make him feel ill. Peace societies got hold of the remedy and tried it on the soldiers of the standing armies with such success that war had to be abandoned because the men would not fight.
"And now the old recipe was brought out, a large quantity of the medicine manufactured, and bombs made and filled with it, each one containing full directions for its use written in Volapiik. These were fired to the earth, and, strange to say, the simple language was soon learned, and the moon- dwellers had the satisfaction of seeing men rapidly metamorphosed into a peaceable, friendly race. Thus the moon directly influenced and governed affairs on the earth. Looked at from that distance it seems to have been the most remarkable case of the tail wagging the dog that the earth had ever seen.
"But we may as well relate the sequel. The effect of the treatment lasted only a few hundred years, and as it was the moon's policy never to repeat a cure, men in time became as bad as ever again, and so at last the flood had to come and wipe them off the face of the earth." _