“Doctor, if this theory be true, then we are nothing short of prophets here!” I exclaimed, still struggling with the wonderful bearings of the idea on our personal welfare.
“In a general way we are prophets, but Zaphnath has forestalled us on immediate matters. Let us keep our own counsel as to any foreknowledge. If we disclose it, we may suddenly lose our opportunities, and, besides, we shall be powerless to change history here in any important respect.”
“I might prevent Zaphnath from bringing all Israel down into Egypt, and thus save them from that captivity,” I exclaimed.
“Then you would forestall a Moses, and prevent the miraculous deliverance of your people, and all the paternal care which God bestowed upon them during that time. You will never be able to do this. Zaphnath is in the way. He is headstrong and wilful. He is an active thinker and a hard worker among a race of idlers, who live only to enjoy the fulness of a rich land. He knows the greater activity and industry of his own people, and he will wish to make them masters of this goodly land. I will warrant that his head is full of plans at this very moment for bringing his old father and all his race down here to give them important places. See how readily he gave the keystone of the whole situation to you. It will pay you better to keep on good terms with him. Instead of trying to change the situation, let us make the best of it as we find it.”
“Well, I must say the present situation is attractive enough to me,” I said, and then inquired, “How many gold coins have you, Doctor?”
“I have only a hundred half eagles and a little silver coin,” he replied; “and I wish to be very sure of the correctness of my theory before I undertake any speculations with that.”
“Nonsense! What is money for, but to double, and then to double the result again!” I exclaimed. “You work out this great theory, and then fail to grasp its commercial importance to us. You and I will embark in the grain business, with our entire stock of gold, the first thing in the morning. We have iron enough to live on.”
“I didn’t come here to go into business,” he answered. “I have a grand scientific career to pursue, and last night’s appointment puts me in just the position to carry it out.”
“Go ahead with it then, but invest your gold coins in my enterprise. I will manage it all,” I said, reaching for my belt under my pillow. “I have here three hundred eagles and one hundred double eagles,—five thousand dollars in all. I scarcely need your five hundred dollars, but I don’t wish to see you left out, and buying bread of me at a dollar a loaf in a short time. Gold must have an enormous value here, considering the small amount of it used as ornaments in the Pharaoh’s household, and the general currency of iron money. Three of these double eagles would make a pair of ear pendants equal to his. I wonder how he would like to have pure gold bracelets on all his women instead of those rough iron things? And wheat must be cheaper than dirt after seven enormous crops. I will buy all the grain he has to sell before to-morrow night! Even if your theory is all wrong, we can’t lose much.”
“That is all very well, but we may as well be sure,” he replied cautiously. “You can find out much by a few discreet questions to Zaphnath in the morning.”
“The trouble about the whole matter is, that I will be obliged to do business through him altogether until we learn this language. Come, you must contribute your share. I have furnished the Hebrew, you must learn the Kemish at once through those wise men. But I can’t wait for that. I will make Zaphnath teach me the necessary shop words and stock phrases for carrying on the grain business to-morrow. I can’t perform my new duties unless he does that.”
However, the doctor did not respond wholly to my new enthusiasm. He was sleepy, and retired yawning to his own room to get the rest which had evaded him. But I lay and tossed on the pillows, revolving a hundred plans, and feeling anything but sleepy. Presently I thought of a scheme, which would demonstrate whether there was anything in the doctor’s theory. I knew it would just suit him, and I sprang up and knocked gently on his door, saying,—
“I have it, Doctor. Here is the very idea!” There was no answer, so I knocked louder and listened. I heard him breathing heavily in deep slumber. After all, the morrow would do for ideas; just then he needed sleep.
CHAPTER VIII
A Plagiarist of Dreams
Being unable to sleep, I arose early to get the refreshment of a morning walk. I passed quietly through the next room, where the doctor was still sleeping soundly, out into the courtyard. I was scarcely outside when I heard a familiar, excited barking, and Two-spot ran across the open space toward me as fast as his four short legs and his very active tail would carry him. His frantic jumping up toward me was extremely comical, for he sprang with more than twice the swiftness I was accustomed to seeing, almost to a level with my face, but he fell very slowly to the ground with only one third the speed that he would have fallen on Earth. He could jump, with almost the agility of a flea, and yet he fell back deliberately like a gas ball. He was evidently enjoying his muscles as much as I had mine. When he made a particularly high jump, I caught him in my hands and patted him fondly.
“So you didn’t fly away with the projectile? Or, did you go with it, and is it safely back again, somewhere? How I wish you could speak my language and tell me all you know! These different tongues are a great bother, aren’t they, Two-spot?”
He answered me volubly, but apart from the fact that he quite agreed with me, I could not understand his message. Had I been able to, it might have made a very great difference to me.
There was a beautiful, filmy snow on the ground, which had fallen during the night. It was scarcely more than a heavy hoar frost, and as the sun sprang up without any warning twilight, the snow melted and left the surface damp and fresh. As I afterwards learned, this thin snow fell almost every night of the year, except for the warmest month of summer when the grain ripened. There were hardly ever any violent storms or quick showers. The thin air made heavy clouds or severe atmospheric movements impossible. But the coolness of night, after a day of feeble but direct and tropical sunshine, precipitated the moisture in the form of those delightful feathers of darkness. I also learned that the months were distinguished by the time of night when this snow fell; for it was precipitated directly after sunset in the winter, but gradually later into the night as summer advanced, and finally just before daybreak. The month in which none fell at all was midsummer, of course. It had scarcely finished falling this morning when I came out into it.
I sprang to the top of the wall, and was watching the quick rising of the Sun, and enjoying the sensation of looking fixedly at his orb without being dazzled, when I noticed that there was a dark notch in the lower left-hand part of his disc! Soon after I distinguished, somewhat farther in, a faint and smaller dark spot. This must be the beginning of the double transit of the Earth and the Moon! I experienced a sensation of joy in finding the home planet again. I confess it had given me a curious shock not to be able to see it in the heavens. It was more comfortable to have it back in the sky again, and at last I knew just where we were in the calendar. On Earth it was the third day of August, 1892. The summer there was at its height, and all my friends were as busy and as deeply immersed in their own affairs as if their little spot had no idea of coquetting with the Sun. Possibly a dozen pairs of studious eyes out of the teeming hundreds of millions on Earth were turned Marsward. This led me to wonder what all-absorbing topics of sport, politics, or war may fill the minds of the possible million people on Venus, when the Earth is so much excited over one of the infrequent and picturesque transits of that planet across the Sun.
But the doctor and Zaphnath must know of this! I hastened into the ante-chamber and called out,—
“Come, get up! I have already discovered two very significant things this morning.”
“What are they?” he asked wearily between yawns.
“Two-spot and the Earth!” I exclaimed. “The former crossed my path in the courtyard, and the latter is just now crossing the Sun. Where is the telescope? quick!”
The doctor was not long in propping it up by the east window, and I went to look for a servant. By repeating the word “Zaphnath” several times, I made him understand that we wished the attendance of the young ruler, and he started for him.
By this time the notch was almost a complete circle of dark shadow within the lower edge of the Sun. The smaller spot, one-fourth the diameter, was forging ahead like a herald to clear the way. Zaphnath soon arrived, for he lived in another part of the Palace. He quietly pressed his cheek to mine, but in my excitement I had seized his hand, and with a pressure which must have hurt his shrinking flesh, I exclaimed,—
“This is the day of thy greatness, O Zaphnath, for, behold, the Blue Star is already upon the face of the
