Read Ebook: The Melting-Pot by Zangwill Israel

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Ebook has 466 lines and 15466 words, and 10 pages

We passed through another door, and I found myself in an office. A man in richly-embossed armor platings sat there. He had a fringe of pale beard, and his eyes were bluer than the gentlewoman Doriza's.

She made a gesture of salute, hand at shoulder height, and reported the matter. He nodded for her to fall back to a corner.

"Stranger," he said to me, "can you think of no better tale to tell than you now offer?"

"I tell the truth," was my reply, not very gracious.

"You will have to prove that," he admonished me.

"What proof have I?" I demanded. "On this world of yours--Dondromogon, isn't it called?--I'm no more than an hour old. Accident or shock has taken my memory. Let me have a medical examination. A scientist probably can tell what happened to put me in such a condition."

"I am a scientist," offered Doriza, and came forward. Her eyes met mine, suddenly flickered and lowered. "His gaze," she muttered.

The officer at the table was touching a button. An attendant appeared, received an order, and vanished again. In a few moments two other men came--one a heavily armed officer of rank, the other an elderly, bearded fellow in a voluminous robe that enfolded him in most dignified manner.

This latter man opened wide his clear old eyes at sight of me.

"The stranger of the prophecy!" he cried, in a voice that made us all jump.

The officer rose from behind the table. "Are you totally mad, Sporr? You mystic doctors are too apt to become fuddled--"

"But it is, it is!" The graybeard flourished a thin hand at me. "Look at him, you of little faith! Your mind dwells so much on material strength that you lose touch with the spiritual--"

He broke off, and wheeled on the attendant who had led him in. "To my study," he commanded. "On the shelf behind my desk, bring the great gold-bound book that is third from the right." Then he turned back, and bowed toward me. "Surely you are Yandro, the Conquering Stranger," he said, intoning as if in formal prayer. "Pardon these short-sighted ones--deign to save us from our enemies--"

The girl Doriza spoke to the officer: "If Sporr speaks truth, and he generally does, you have committed a blasphemy."

The other made a little grimace. "This may be Yandro, though I'm a plain soldier and follow the classics very little. The First Comers are souls to worship, not to study. If indeed he is Yandro," and he was most respectful, "he will appreciate, like a good military mind, my caution against possible impostors."

"Who might Yandro be?" I demanded, very uncomfortable in my bonds and loose draperies.

Old Sporr almost crowed. "You see? If he was a true imposter, he would come equipped with all plausible knowledge. As it is--"

"As it is, he may remember that the Conquering Stranger is foretold to come with no memory of anything," supplied the officer. "Score one against you, Sporr. You should have been able to instruct me, not I you."

The attendant reentered, with a big book in his hands. It looked old and well-thumbed, with dim gold traceries on its binding. Sporr snatched it, and turned to a brightly colored picture. He looked once, his beard gaped, and he dropped to his knees.

"Happy, happy the day," he jabbered, "that I was spared to see our great champion come among us in the flesh, as was foretold of ancient time by the First Comers!"

Doriza and the officer crossed to his side, snatching the book. Their bright heads bent above it. Doriza was first to speak. "It is very like," she half-stammered.

The officer faced me, with a sort of baffled respect.

"I still say you will understand my caution," he addressed me, with real respect and shyness this time. "If you are Yandro himself, you can prove it. The prophecy even sketches a thumb-print--" And he held the book toward me.

It contained a full-page likeness, in color, of myself wrapped in a scarlet robe. Under this was considerable printed description, and to one side a thumb-print, or a drawing of one, in black.

"Behold," Doriza was saying, "matters which even expert identification men take into thought. The ears in the picture are like the ears of the real man--"

"That could be plastic surgery," rejoined the officer. "Such things are artfully done by the Newcomers, and the red mantle he wears more easily assumed."

Doriza shook her head. "That happens to be my cloak. I gave it to him because he was naked, and not for any treasonable masquerade. But the thumb-print--"

"Bonds," mumbled old Sporr. He got creakily up from his knees and bustled to me. From under his robe he produced a pouch, and took out a pencil-sized rod. Gingerly opening the red mantle, he touched my tether in several places with the glowing end of the rod. The coils dropped away from my grateful body and limbs. I thrust out my hands.

"Thumb-prints?" I offered.

Sporr had produced something else, a little vial of dark pigment. He carefully anointed one of my thumbs, and pressed it to the page. All three gazed.

"The same," said Doriza.

And they were all on their knees before me.

"Forgive me, great Yandro," said the officer thickly. "I did not know."

"Get up," I bade them. "I want to hear why I was first bound, and now worshipped."

They rose, but stood off respectfully. The officer spoke first. "I am Rohbar, field commander of this defense position," he said with crisp respect. "Sporr is a mystic doctor, full of godly wisdom. Doriza, a junior officer and chief of the guard. And you--how could you know?--are sent by the First Comers to save us from our enemies."

"Enemies?" I repeated.

"The Newcomers," supplemented Doriza. "They have taken the "Other Side" of Dondromogon, and would take our side as well. We defend ourselves at the poles. Now," and her voice rang joyously, "you will lead us to defeat and crush them utterly!"

"Not naked like this," I said, and laughed. I must have sounded foolish, but it had its effect.

"Follow me, deign to follow me," Sporr said. "Your clothing, your quarters, your destiny, all await you."

We went out by the door at the rear, and Sporr respectfully gestured me upon a metal-plated platform. Standing beside me, he tinkered with a lever. We dropped smoothly away into a dark corridor, past level after level of light and sound.

"Our cities are below ground," he quavered. "Whipped by winds above, we must scrabble in the depths for life's necessities--chemicals to transmute into food, to weave into clothing, to weld into tools and weapons--"

The mention of food brought to me the thought that I was hungry. I said as much, even as our elevator platform came to the lowest level and stopped.

"I have arranged for that," Sporr began, then fell silent, fingers combing his beard in embarrassment.

"Arranged food for me?" I prompted sharply. "As if you know I had come? What--"

"Pardon, great Yandro," babbled Sporr. "I was saying that I arranged food, as always, for whatever guest should come. Please follow."

We entered a new small chamber, where a table was set with dishes of porcelain-like plastic. Sporr held a chair for me, and waited on me with the utmost gingerly respect. The food was a pungent and filling jelly, a little bundle of transparent leaves or scraps like cellophane and tasting of spice, and a tumbler of pink juice. I felt refreshed and satisfied, and thanked Sporr, who led me on to the next room.

"Behold!" he said, with a dramatic gesture. "Your garments, even as they have been preserved against your coming!"

It was a sleeping chamber, with a cot made fast to the wall, a metal locker or cupboard, with a glass door through which showed the garments of which Sporr spoke.

The door closed softly behind me--I was left alone.

Knowing that it was expected of me, I went to the locker and opened the door. The garments inside were old, I could see, but well kept and serviceable. I studied their type, and my hands, if not my mind, seemed familiar with them.

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