I translated this to the doctor, and watched him curiously, with an inquiring twinkle in my eye.
“Let us accept them, and bestow their liberty upon them,” he said.
I immediately chose the third maiden, who had pressed her pink cheeks to my lips, and when she came to sit opposite to me upon the cushion, I spoke to her through Zaphnath,—
“Thy ways have pleased me, but upon my star we do not think it proper to own any slaves. When we know well-favoured and graceful women, such as thou art, we prefer to be their slaves, rather than they ours. If I could take thee with me to the Earth, the laws there would set thee free to do whatever pleased thee best. Wishest thou that I make thee free here?”
She was evidently surprised when Zaphnath put this question to her. She replied in a sincere and pleading tone, but her words astonished me,—
“Whatever the dark Man of Ice wisheth, I will do. I know not why he hath asked what I desire. He speaketh of freedom, but I beseech him not to send me back to that! I was born an unhappy and masterless maiden, and many years I struggled and laboured for a miserable existence. I drove asses, gleaned in the fields, and did the menial work of men. But I felt I was fit for better, nobler things. At last, I heard that the armies of the Pharaoh were coming to my land, and I took heed of my appearance, put on my neatest feather clothing, and went to throw myself before the soldiers. They were pleased with me, and brought me to this city, where fortune favoured me, and Pharaoh, looking over all the women whom the soldiers brought from the wars, chose me, with many others, to join his household. And here in the Palace for a few years I have been happy and well cared for. I pray thee do not turn me out again; do not degrade me to the labour and misery of freedom. Even the beasts have masters! They are housed, and fed, and cared for; why should I then be cast out and left to drudge or beg?”
“Doth she mean this?” I exclaimed. “What then is the chief aim of women in Kem? What is the highest state to which they may aspire?”
“’Tis a strange, simple question!” he answered. “There is no greater blessing for a woman than to belong to the household of the Pharaoh. Here they are delighted with constant music and dancing; their beauty is cultivated and heightened by rich and tasteful clothing; and their charms and graces may win for them a selection as one of the one-and-twenty favourites of the Pharaoh. What they fear most is being chosen and carried away by guests whose palaces and ways of life are less luxurious than the Pharaoh’s.”
“Why then, as we have no palaces and wish no slaves, it were best to return these maidens to the Pharaoh if they will be happier and better cared for here than anywhere else in all the land of Kem,” I said to Zaphnath.
“This age is not ripe for the grand idea of freedom which dominates our own,” remarked the doctor, as we returned the grateful maidens to the constant delights of an ornate and sensuous slavery.
CHAPTER VII
Parallel Planetary Life
I was sleeping soundly on my deliciously soft heap of downy pillows, when in the early morning I was awakened by a pounding on the door of the ante-chamber. As one always wakens from a sound sleep with his most familiar language upon his tongue, I cried out in English, “Who’s there?” The doctor answered, wishing to be let in. I fumbled about in the darkness sleepily, and opened the door, and he lighted two of my gas-lamps with the one he carried. He looked rather tired and worn.
“I am possessed by a tyrant idea, which will not let me sleep,” he said. “I must get rid of it before morning. Come, get your senses about you, and listen to me,” he commanded, as I yawned and rubbed my fists into my eyes, blinded by the sudden strong light.
“If you think I can sleep with it any better than you can, out with it,” I answered.
“How does it happen that a young Hebrew is ruler over all these people?” he demanded.
“Do you lie awake thinking up conundrums?” I ejaculated.
“On Earth, what notable Jews have been rulers over a great people not of their own race?” he continued.
“Disraeli in England, Joseph in Egypt, and—well, that is all I can think of just now.”
“Perhaps that is enough. Egypt was the greatest grain-raising country in Joseph’s time, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, of course,” I answered. “And Joseph’s rule began with seven years of most wonderful crops.”
“Zaphnath told us this morning that the seventh great crop, and the most plenteous of all, is now growing,” he interrupted.
“What has that to do with Joseph? We are not on Earth, but on Mars. Have you been dreaming? Zaphnath is— But, by the way, Joseph’s Egyptian name was Zaphnath-paaneah, meaning a revealer of secrets! When I heard that name this morning, I thought it was strangely familiar. Pharaoh called him that when he appointed him ruler, because he had interpreted his dream,” I said, just realizing the very peculiar coincidence.
“You are as good as a Bible!” cried the doctor. “Perhaps you can also remember by which of Jacob’s wives Joseph was born?”
“Of course I can. He was the first son of Rachel, the wife whom Jacob really loved, and worked fourteen years to secure.”
“But how could he have ten older brothers, if he was Rachel’s first son?” he demanded, a little perplexed.
“They were all the sons of her sister Leah and her handmaidens. Rachel was barren all her life until Joseph was born,” I explained.
“And Zaphnath said this morning that his mother was barren all the years of her life that the Blue Star wandered. He also called himself revealer of God’s hidden things.”
“Yes; and it struck me as peculiar at the time that he said of ‘God’s’ not of ‘the gods’,’” I reflected. “Evidently he thinks there is but one God. The whole matter is altogether peculiar.”
“Here are the facts,” replied the doctor. “Listen to them attentively. We have dropped down into a civilization here upon Mars which coincides in every important particular with that of the Ancient Egyptians on Earth. They are great builders, erecters of monuments, raisers of grain, polygamists, and they now have a young Hebrew ruler, corresponding in every important respect with Joseph. We chance to have arrived during the seventh year of plenty of Joseph’s rule. Grain abounds; the soil brings it forth ‘by handfuls.’ It is, ‘as the sand of the sea, very much,’ and the Pharaoh, probably at the suggestion of his young ruler, is storing it up—”
“By all the Patriarchs!” I interrupted. “They are running a wheat corner, and I didn’t know it! Go on, go on!”
“These are all very singular coincidences with a history which was enacted many thousands of years ago on Earth. Now, how can you explain their strange recurrence here?” he queried.
“How should I know? I haven’t been lying awake! How do you explain them?” I asked, full of interest.
“I have tossed on my pillows in there for three hours evolving a theory for it. If it is correct, our opportunities here in Kem are simply enormous. Now listen, and don’t interrupt me. The Creator has given all the habitable planets the same great problem of life to work out. Every one of His worlds in its time passes through the same general history. This runs parallel on all of them, but at a different speed on each. The swift ones, nearest to the sun, have hurried through it, and may be close upon the end. But this is a slow planet, whose year is almost twice as long as the Earth’s, and more than three times that of Venus. The seasons pass sluggishly here, and history ripens slowly. This world has only reached that early chapter in the story equivalent to Ancient Egypt on Earth. We have forged far ahead of that, and on Venus they have worked out far more of the story than we know anything about. If Mercury is habitable yet, his people may have reached almost the end, but it is most probable that life has not started there; when it does begin, it will be worked out four times as rapidly as it has on Earth.”