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HOME > Classical Novels > The Manatitlans > CHAPTER XXIX.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
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 towa............
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