 CHAPTER XII Those who happen to hold the view, and Mr. Evan McKeehan now alive and comfortable, is among the number, that something supernatural, some eccentric kindness from God or fairy had guided our adventurers through all their absurd perils, might have found his strongest argument, perhaps, in their management or mismanagement of Mr. Wilkinson's yacht. Neither of them had the smallest qualification for managing such a vessel, but McKeehan had a practical knowledge of the sea in much smaller and quite different boats, while Turnbull had an abstract knowledge of science and some of its applications to navigation, which was worse. The presence of the God or fairy can only be deduced from the fact that they never definitely ran into anything, either a boat, a rock, a quicksand, or a man of war. Apart from this negative description, their voyage would be difficult to describe. It took at least a fortnight, and McKeehan, who was certainly the shrooter sailor of the two, realized that they were sailing west into the Atlantic, and were probably by this time past the skilly aisles. How much farther they stood out into the western sea it was impossible to conjecture. But they felt certain, at least, that they were far enough into that awful gulf between us and America to make it unlikely that they should soon see land again. It was therefore with legitimate excitement that one rainy morning after daybreak they saw that distinct shape of a solitary island standing up against the encircling strip of silver which ran round the skyline and separated the gray and green of the billows from the gray and mauve of the morning clouds. What can it be? cried McKeehan in a dry-throated excitement. I didn't know there were any Atlantic islands so far beyond the skillies. Good Lord, it can't be Madeira yet. I thought you were fond of legends and lies and fables, said Turnbull Grimly. Perhaps it's Atlantis. Of course it might be, answered the other quite innocently and gravely, but I never thought the story about Atlantis was very solidly established. Whatever it is, we are running on to it, said Turnbull equably, and we shall be shipwrecked twice at any rate. The naked-looking nose of land projecting from the unknown island was, indeed, growing larger and larger like the trunk of some terrible and advancing elephant. There seemed to be nothing in particular, at least on this side of the island, except shoals of shellfish lying so thick as almost to make it look like one of those toy grottos that the children make. In one place, however, the coast offered a soft, smooth bay of sand, and even the rudimentary ingenuity of the two amateur mariners managed to run up the little ship with her prow well on shore and her bow sprit pointing upward as in a sort of idiotic triumph. They tumbled on shore and began to unload the vessel, setting the stores out in rows upon the sand with something of the salinity of boys playing at pirates. There were Mr. Wilkinson's cigar boxes, and Mr. Wilkinson's dozen of champagne, and Mr. Wilkinson's tinned salmon, and Mr. Wilkinson's tinned tongue, and Mr. Wilkinson's tinned sardines, and every sort of preserved thing that could be seen at the army and navy stores. Then McKeein stopped with a jar of pickles in his hand and said abruptly, I don't know why we're doing all this. I suppose we ought really to fall to and get it over. Then he added more thoughtfully, Of course, this island seems rather bare, and the survivor. The question is, said Turnbull, with cheerful speculation, whether the survivor will be in a proper frame of mind for potted prawns. McKeein looked down at the rows of tins and bottles, and the cloud of doubt still lowered upon his face. You will permit me two liberties, my dear sir, said Turnbull at last. The first is to break open this box and light one of Mr. Wilkinson's excellent cigars, which will, I am sure, assist my meditations. The second is to offer a penny for your thoughts, or rather to convulse the already complex finances of this island by betting on any that I know them. What on earth are you talking about? asked McKeein listlessly in the manner of an inattentive child. I know what you are really thinking, McKeein, repeated Turnbull laughing. I know what I am thinking anyhow, and I rather fancy it's the same. What are you thinking? asked Devon. I am thinking, and you are thinking, said Turnbull, that it is ready to waste all that champagne. Something like the specter of a smile appeared on the unsmiling visage of the gale, and he made at least no movement of descent. We could drink all the wine and smoke all the cigars easily in a week, said Turnbull, and that would be to die feasting like heroes. Yes, and there is something else, said McKeein, with slight hesitation. You see, we are on an almost unknown rock lost in the frantic. The police will never catch us, but then neither may the public ever hear of us, and that was one of the things we wanted. Then after a pause, he said, drawing in the sand with his sword-point, she may never hear of it at all. Well, inquired the other, puffing at his cigar. Well, said McKeein, we might occupy a day or two in drawing up a thorough and complete statement of what we did and why we did it, and all about both our points of view. Then we could leave one copy on the island whatever happens to us and put another in an empty bottle and send it out to see as they do in the books. A good idea, said Turnbull, and now let us finish unpacking. As McKeein, a tall, almost ghostly figure, paced along the edge of sand that ran round the islet, the purple but cloudy poetry which was his native element was piled up at its thickest upon his soul. The unique island and the endless sea emphasized the thing solely as an epic. There were no ladies or policemen here to give him a hint either of its farce or its tragedy. Perhaps when the morning stars were made, he said to himself, God built this island up from the bottom of the world to be a tower and a theater for the fight between yay and nay. Then he wandered up to the highest level of the rock where there was a roof or plateau of level stone. Half an hour afterwards, Turnbull found him clearing away the loose sand from this table land and making it smooth and even. We will fight up here, Turnbull, said McKeein, when the time comes. Until the time comes, this place shall be sacred. I thought of having lunch up there, said Turnbull, who had a bottle of champagne in his hand. No, no, not up here, said McKeein, and came down from the height quite hastily. Before he descended, however, he fixed the two swords upright, wanted each end of the platform, as if they were human sentinels to guard it under the stars. Then they came down and lunched plentifully in a nest of loose rocks. In the same place that night they supped more plentifully still. The smoke of Mr. Wilkinson's cigars went up ceaseless and strong smelling like a pagan sacrifice. The golden glories of Mr. Wilkinson's champagne rose to their heads and poured out of them in fancies and philosophies, and occasionally they would look up at the starlight and the rock and see the space guarded by the two cross-hilted swords which looked like two black crosses at either end of a grave. In this primitive and Homeric truce the week passed by. It consisted almost entirely of eating, drinking, smoking, talking, and occasionally singing. They wrote their records and cast loose their bottle. They never ascended to the ominous plateau. They had never stood there save for that single embarrassed minute when they had had no time to take stock of the seascape or the shape of the land. They did not even explore the island, for McKeein was partly concerned in prayer and Turnbull entirely concerned with tobacco. And both these forms of inspiration can be enjoyed by the secluded and even the sedentary. It was on a golden afternoon the sun sinking over the sea, grayed like the very head of Apollo, when Turnbull tossed off the last half pint from the emptied Wilkinsonian bottle, hurled the bottle into the sea with objectless energy, and went up to where his sword stood waiting for him on the hill. McKeein was already standing heavily by his with bent head and eyes reading the ground. He had not even troubled to throw a glance round the island or the horizon, but Turnbull being of a more active and bird-like type of mind did throw a glance round the scene, the consequence of which was that he nearly fell off the rock. On three sides of this shelly and sandy island the sea stretched blue and infinite without a speck of land or sail. The same as Turnbull had first seen it, except that the tide being out it showed a few yards more of slanting sand under the roots of the rocks. But on the fourth side the island exhibited a more extraordinary feature. In fact it exhibited the extraordinary feature of not being an island at all. A long, curving neck of sand, as smooth and wet as the neck of the sea serpent, ran out into the sea and joined their rock to a line of low, billowing and glistening sand hills which the sinking sea had just bared to the sun. Whether they were firm sand or quick sand it was difficult to guess, but there was at least no doubt that they lay on the edge of some larger land, for colorless hills appeared faintly behind them and no sea could be seen beyond. Sakes alive! cried Turnbull with rolling eyes. This ain't an island in the Atlantic. We've butted the bally continent of America. McKeon turned his head and his face already pale grew a shade paler. He was by this time walking in a world of omens and hieroglyphics and he could not read anything but what was baffling or menacing in this brown gigantic arm of the earth stretched out into the sea to seize him. McKeon said Turnbull in his temperate way, whatever our eternal interrupted tata-tates have taught us or not taught us at least we need not fear the charge of fear. If it is essential to your emotions I will cheerfully finish the fight here and now but I must confess that if you kill me here I shall die with my curiosity highly excited and unsatisfied upon a minor point of geography. I do not want to stop now, said the other in his elephantine simplicity, but we must stop for a moment because it is a sign perhaps it is a miracle. We must see what is at the end of the road of sand. It may be a bridge built across the gulf by God. So long as you gratify my query, said Turnbull, laughing and letting back his blade into the sheath, I do not care for what reason you choose to stop. They clambered down the Rocky Peninsula and trudged along the sandy isthmus with the plotting resolution of men who seemed almost to have made up their minds to be wanderers on the face of the earth. Despite Turnbull's air of scientific eagerness, he was really the less impatient of the two and the Highlander went on well ahead of him with passionate strides. By the time they had walked for about a half an hour in the ups and downs of those dreary sands, the distance between the two had lengthened and McKeehan was only a tall figure silhouetted for an instant upon the crest of some sand dune and then disappearing behind it. This rather increased the Robinson Crusoe feeling in Mr. Turnbull and he looked about almost disconsolently for some sign of life. What sort of life he expected it to be if it appeared he did not very clearly know. He has since confessed that he thinks that in his subconsciousness he expected an alligator. The first sign of life that he did see, however, was something more extraordinary than the largest alligator. It was nothing less than the notorious Mr. Evan McKeehan coming bounding back across the sand heaps breathless without his cap and keeping the sword in his hand only by a habit now quite hardened. Take care, Turnbull. He cried out from a good distance as he ran. I've seen a native. A native? repeated his companion whose scenery had of late been chiefly of shellfish. What the deuce? Do you mean an oyster? No, said McKeehan stopping and breathing hard. I mean a savage, a black man. Why, where did you see him? asked the staring editor. Over there, behind that hill, said the gasping McKeehan, he put up his black head and knee. Turnbull thrust his hands through his red hair like one who gives up the world as a bad riddle. Lord love a duck, said he, can it be Jamaica? Then glancing at his companion with a small frown, as of one slightly suspicious, he said, I say, don't think me rude, but you're a visionary kind of fellow, and then we drank a great deal. Do you mind waiting here while I go out? Shout if you get into trouble, said the kelts with composure. You'll find it, as I say. Turnbull ran off ahead with a rapidity now far greater than his rivals, and soon vanished over the disputed Sandhill. Then five minutes passed, and then seven minutes, and McKeehan bit his lip and swung his sword, and the other did not reappear. Finally, with a gaelic oath, after the rescue, and almost at the same moment, the small figure of the missing man appeared on the ridge against the sky. Even at that distance, however, there was something odd about his attitude, so odd that McKeehan continued to make his way in that direction. It looked as if he were wounded, or still more as if he were ill. He wavered as he came down the slope, and seemed flinging himself into peculiar postures. He came within three feet of McKeehan's face, but that observer of mankind fully realized that Mr. James Turnbull was roaring with laughter. You are quite right, sobbed that holy demoralized journalist. He's black. Oh, there's no doubt the black's all right as far as it goes. And then he went off again into convulsions of his humorous ailment. Whatever is the matter with the patients? Did you see the nigger? I saw the nigger, gasped Turnbull. I saw the splendid barbarian chief. I saw the emperor of Ethiopia. Oh, I saw him all right. The niggers' hands and face are a lovely color, and the nigger and he was overtaken once more. Well, well, well, said McKeehan, stamping each mano syllable on the sand. What about the nigger? The truth is, said Turnbull suddenly and startlingly, becoming quite grave and precise, the truth is the nigger is a Margate nigger, and we are now on the edge of the Isle of Thanet a few miles from Margate. Then he had a momentary return of his hysteria and said, I say, old boy, I should like to see a chart of our fortnight's cruise in Wilkinson's yacht. McKeehan had no smile and answer, but he opened as if parched for the truth. You mean to say, he began. Yes, I mean to say, said Turnbull, and I mean to say something funnier still. I have learned everything I wanted to know from the partially black musician over there who has taken a run in his war-paint to meet a friend in a quiet pub along the coast. The noble savage has told me all about it. The bottle containing our declaration, saying sentiments, was washed up on Margate Beach yesterday in the presence of one alderman, two bathing machine men, three policemen, seven doctors, and 113 London clerks on a holiday, to all of whom, whether directly or indirectly, our composition gave enormous literary pleasure. Fuck up, old man, this story of ours is a switchback. I have begun to understand the pulse and the time of it. Now we are up in a cathedral, and then we are down in a theater, where they only play farces. Come, I am quite reconciled. Let us enjoy the farce. But McKeehan said nothing, and an instant afterwards Turnbull himself called out in an entirely changed voice. Oh, this is damnable. This is not to be born. McKeehan followed his eye along the sandhills. He saw what looked like the momentary and waving figure of the nigger minstrel, and then he saw a heavy running policeman take the turn of the sand hill with the smooth salinity of a railway train. End of Chapter 12 Recording by Tricia G. Chapter 13 of The Ball and the Cross This Libra Box recording is in the public domain. The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton Chapter 13 The Garden of Peace Up to this instant, McKeehan had really understood nothing. But when he saw the policeman, he saw everything. He saw his enemies, all the powers and princes of the earth. He suddenly altered from a staring statue to a leaping man of the mountains. We must break away from him here. He cried briefly and went like a whirlwind over the sand ridge in a straight line and at a particular angle. When the policeman had finished the turf, he found a wall of failing sand between him and the pursuit. By the time he had scaled it thrice, slid down twice and crusted it in the third effort, the two flying figures were far in front. They found the sand harder farther on. It began to be crusted with scraps of turf and in a few moments they were flying easily over an open common of rank sea grass. They had no easy business, however, for the bottle which had so innocently sent into the chief gate of Thanet had called to life the police of half a county on their trail. From every side across the grey-green common figures could be seen running and closing in. And it was only when McKeon with his big body broke down the tangled barrier of a little wood as men break down a door with the shoulder, it was only when they vanished crashing into the underworld of the black wood that their hunters were even instantaneously thrown off the scent. At the risk of struggling a little longer like flies in that black web of twigs and trunks, Evan, who had an instinct of the hunter or the hunted, took an incalculable course through the forest, which let them out at last by a forest opening quite forgotten by the leaders of the chase. They ran a mile or two farther along the edge of the wood until they reached another and somewhat similar opening. Then McKeon stood utterly still and listened, as animals listen, for every sound in the universe. Then he said, We are quit of them. And Turnbull said, Where shall we go now? McKeon looked at the silver sunset that was closing in barred by plumy lines of purple cloud. He looked at the high tree tops that caught the last light and at the birds going heavily homeward just as if all these things were bits of written advice that he could read. Then he said, The best place we can go is to bed. If we can get some sleep in this wood, now everyone has cleared out of it, it will be worth a handicap of two hundred yards tomorrow. Turnbull, who was exceptionally lively and laughing in his demeanor, kicked his legs about like a schoolboy and said he did not want to go to sleep. He walked incessantly and talked very brilliantly. And when at last he lay down on the hard earth, sleep struck him senseless like a hammer. Indeed he needed the strongest sleep he could get, for the earth was still full of darkness and a kind of morning fog when his fellow fugitive shook him awake. No more sleep, I'm afraid, said Evan in a heavy, almost submissive voice of apology. They've gone on past us right enough for a good thirty miles, but now they've found out their mistake and they're coming back. Are you sure? said Turnbull, sitting up and rubbing his red eyebrows with his hand. The next moment, however, he had jumped up alive and leaping like a man struck with a shock of cold water and he was plunging after McKeon along the woodland path. The shape of their old friend the Constable had appeared against the pearl and pink of the sunrise. Somehow it always looked a very funny shape when seen against the sunrise. A wash of weary daylight was breaking over the countryside and the fields and roads were full of white mist, the kind of white mist that clings in corners like cotton wool. The empty road along which the chase had taken its turn was overshadowed on one side by a very high discolored wall stained and streaked green as with seaweed, evidently the high-shouldered sentinel of some great gentleman's estate. The two from the wall ran parallel to it a linked and tangled line of lime trees forming a kind of cloister along the side of the road. It was under this branching colonnade that the two fugitives fled almost concealed from their pursuers by the twilight, the mist and the leaping zoey trope of shadows. Their feet, though beating the ground furiously, made but a faint noise, for they had kicked away their boots in the wood. Their long antiquated weapons made no jingle or clatter, for they had strapped them across their backs like guitars. They had all the advantages that invisibility and silence can add to speed. A hundred and fifty yards behind them down the center of the empty road the first of their pursuers came pounding and panting a fat but powerful policeman who had distanced all the rest. He came on at a splendid pace for supportly a figure but like all heavy bodies in motion he gave the impression that it would be easier for him to increase his pace than to slacken it suddenly. Nothing short of a brick wall could have abruptly brought him up. Turnbull turned his head slightly and found breath to say something to Machiaan. Machiaan nodded. Pursuer and pursued were fixed in their distance as they fled for some quarter of a mile when they came to a place where two or three of the trees grew twistedly together making a special obscurity. Past this place the pursuing policeman went thundering without thought or hesitation but he was pursuing his shadow or the wind for Turnbull had put one foot in a crack of the tree and gone up it as quickly and softly as a cat somewhat more laboriously but in equal silence the long legs of the Highlander had followed and crouching in crucial silence in the cloud of leaves they saw the whole posse of their pursuers go by and die into the dust and mists of the distance. The white vapor lay as it often does in lean and palpable layers and even the head of the tree was above it in the half daylight like a green ship swinging on a sea of foam but higher yet behind them and readier to catch the first coming of the sun ran the rampart of the top of the wall which in their excitement of escape looked at once indispensable like the wall of heaven here however it was McKeon's turn to have the advantage for though less light limbed in feline he was longer and stronger in the arms in two seconds he had tugged up his chin over the wall like a horizontal bar the next he sat astride of it like a horse of stone with his assistance Turnbull vaulted to the same perch and the two began cautiously to shift along the wall in the direction by which they had come doubling on their tracks to throw off the last pursuit McKeon could not rid himself of the fancy of bestriding a steed the long grey coping of the wall shot out in front of him like the long grey neck of some nightmare Rosinante he had the quaint thought that he in Turnbull were two knights on one steed on the old shield of the Templars the nightmare of the stone horse was increased by the white fog seemed thicker inside the wall than outside they could make nothing of the enclosure upon which they were partial trespassers except that the green and crooked branches of a big apple tree came crawling at them out of the mist like the tentacles of some green cuddle fish anything would serve however that was likely to confuse their trail so they both decided without need of words to use this tree also as a ladder a ladder of descent when they dropped from the lowest branch to the ground their stocking feet felt hard gravel beneath them they had alighted in the middle of a very broad garden path and the clearing mist permitted them to see the edge of a well clipped lawn though the white vapor was still a veil it was like the gauzy veil of a transformation scene in a pantomime for through it there glowed shapeless masses of color masses which might be clouds of sunrise or mosaics of golden crimson or ladies robed in ruby and emerald draperies as it thinned yet farther they saw that it was only flowers but flowers in such insolent mass and magnificence as can seldom be seen out of the tropics purple and crimson rhododendrons rose arrogantly like rampant heraldic animals against their burning background of laburnum gold the roses were red hot the climatus was so to speak blue hot and yet the mere whiteness of the syringa seemed the most violent color of all as the golden sunlight gradually conquered the mists it had really something of the sensational sweetness of the slow opening of the gates of Eden Mekian whose mind was always haunted with such seraphic or titanic parallels made some such remark to his companion but Turnbull only cursed and said that it was the back garden of some damnable rich man when the last haze had faded from the ordered paths the open lawns and the flaming flower beds the two realized not without an abrupt re-examination of their position that they were not alone in the garden down the center of the central garden path proceeded by the blue cloud from a cigarette was walking a gentleman who evidently understood all the relish of a garden in the very early morning he was a slim yet satisfied figure clad in a suit of pale gray tweed so subdued that the pattern was imperceptible a costume that was casual but not by any means careless his face which was reflective and somewhat over refined was the face of a quite elderly man though his stringy hair and mustache were still quite yellow a double eyeglass with a broad black ribbon drooped from his aquiline nose and he smiled as he communed with himself with a self-content which was rare and almost irritating the straw Panama on his head was many shades shabbier than his clothes as if he had caught it up by accident it needed the full shock of the huge shadow of McKeon falling across his sunlit path to rouse him from his smiling reverie when this had fallen on him he lifted his head a little and blinked at the intruders with short-sighted benevolence but with far less surprise than might have been expected he was a gentleman that is he had social presence of mind whether for kindness or for insolence can I do anything for you he said at last McKeon bowed you can extend to us your pardon he said for he also came of a whole race of gentlemen of gentlemen without shirts to their backs I am afraid we are trespassing we have just come over the wall over the wall repeated the smiling old gentleman still without letting his surprise come uppermost I suppose I am not wrong sir continued McKeon in supposing that these grounds inside the wall belong to you the man in the Panama looked at the ground and smoked thoughtfully for a few moments after which he said with a sort of matured conviction suddenly the grounds inside the wall really belong to me and the grounds outside the wall too a large proprietor I imagine said Turnbull with a truckulent eye yes answered the old gentleman looking at him with a steady smile a large proprietor Turnbull's eye grew even more offensive and he began biting his red beard but McKeon seemed to recognize a type with which he could deal quite easily I am sure that a man like you will not need to be told that one sees and does a good many things that do not get into the newspapers things which on the whole had better not get into the newspapers the smile of the large proprietor broadened for a moment under his loose light mustache and the other continued with increased confidence one sometimes wants to have it out with another man the police won't allow it in the streets and then there's the county council and in the fields even nothing is allowed but posters of pills but in a gentleman's garden now the strange gentleman smiled again and said easily enough do you want to fight what do you want to fight about McKeon had understood this man pretty well up to that point an instinct common to all men with the aristocratic tradition of Europe had guided him he knew that the kind of man who in his own back garden wears good clothes and spoils them with a bad hat is not the kind of man who has an abstract horror of illegal actions of violence or the evasion of the police but a man may understand ragging and yet be very far from understanding religious ragging this seeming host of theirs might comprehend a quarrel of husband and lover or a difficulty at cards or even escape from a pursuing tailor but it still remained doubtful whether he would feel the earth fell under him in that earthquake instant when the virgin is compared to a goddess of Mesopotamia Evan McKeon therefore whose tact was far from being his strong point felt the necessity for some compromise in the motive approach at last he said and even then with hesitation we are fighting about God there can be nothing so important as that the tilted eyeglasses of the old gentleman fell abruptly from his nose and he thrust his aristocratic chin so far forward that his lean neck seemed to shoot out longer like a telescope about God he queried in a key completely new look here cried Turnbull taking his turn roughly I'll tell you what it's all about I think that there's no God I take it that it's nobody's business but mine or God's if there is one this young gentleman from the Highlands happens to think that it's his business in consequence he first takes a walking stick and smashes my shop then he takes the same walking stick and tries to smash me to this I naturally object I suggest that if it comes to that we should both have sticks he improves on the suggestion and proposes that we should both have steel pointed sticks the police with characteristic unreasonableness will not accept either of our proposals the result is that we run about dodging the police and have jumped over your garden wall into your magnificent garden to throw ourselves on your magnificent hospitality the face of the old gentleman had grown redder and redder during this address but it was still smiling and when he broke out it was with a kind of guffaw so you really want to fight with drawn swords in my garden he asked about whether there is really a God why not said McKeon with his simple monstrosity of speech all man's worship began when the garden of Eden was founded yes by blank said turnbull with an oath and ended when the zoological gardens were founded in this garden in my presence cried the stranger stamping up and down the gravel and choking with laughter whether there is a God and he went stamping up and down the garden making it echo with his unintelligible laughter then he came back to them more composed and wiping his eyes why how small the world is he cried at last I can settle the whole matter why I am God and he suddenly began to kick and wave his well-clad legs about the lawn you are what repeated turnbull in a tone which is beyond description why God of course answered the other thoroughly amused how funny it is to think that you have tumbled over a garden wall and fallen exactly on the right person you might have gone floundering about in all sorts of churches and chapels and colleges and schools of philosophy looking for some evidence of the existence of God why there is no evidence except that you have seen him and now you have seen him you have seen him dance and the obliging old gentleman instantly stood on one leg without relaxing at all the grave and cultured benignity of his expression I understood that this garden began the bewildered McKean quite so, quite so said the man on one leg nodding gravely I said this garden belonged to me and the land outside it so does the country beyond that and the sea beyond that and all the rest of the earth so does the moon so do the sun and stars and he added with a smile of apology you see, I am God turnbull in McKean looked at him for one moment with a sort of notion that perhaps he was not too old to be merely playing the fool but after staring steadily for an instant turnbull saw the hard and horrible earnestness in the man's eyes behind all his empty animation then turnbull looked very gravely at the strict gravel walls in the gay flower beds and the long rectangular red brick building which the mist had left evident beyond them then he looked at McKean almost at the same moment another man came walking quickly round the regal clump of road addendrons he had the look of a prosperous banker where a good tall silk hat was almost stout enough to burst the buttons of a fine frock coat but he was talking to himself and one of his elbows had a singular outward jerk as he went by End of Chapter 13 Recording by Tricia G Chapter 14 of The Ball and the Cross This LibriVox recording is in the public domain The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton Chapter 14 A Museum of Souls The man with the good hat and the jumping elbow went by very quickly but the man with the bad hat who thought he was God overtook him he ran after him and jumped over a bed of geraniums to catch him I beg your majesties pardon he said with mock humility but here is a quarrel which you ought really to judge then as he led the heavy silk-hatted man back towards the group like he and's ear in order to whisper this poor gentleman is mad he thinks he is Edward the Seventh at this the self-appointed creator slightly winked of course you won't trust him much come to me for everything but in my position one has to meet so many people one has to be broad minded the big banker in the black frock coat and hat was standing quite grave and dignified on the lawn safer his slight twitch of one limb and he did not seem by any means unworthy of the part which the other promptly forced upon him my dear fellow said the man in the straw hat these two gentlemen are going to fight a duel of the utmost importance your own royal position and my much humbler one surely indicate us as the proper seconds seconds yes seconds here the speaker was once more shaken with his old malady of laughter yes you and I are both seconds and these two gentlemen can obviously fight in front of us you he he are the king I am God really they could hardly have better supporters they have come to the right place then Turnbull who had been staring with a frown at the fresh turf burst out with a rather bitter laugh and cried in the air yes by God McKeon I think we have come to the right place and McKeon answered with an adamantine stupidity any place is the right place where they will let us do it there was a long stillness and their eyes involuntarily took in the landscape as they had taken in all the landscapes of their everlasting combat the bright square garden behind the shop the whole lift and leaning on the side of Hampstead Heath the little garden of the decadent choked with flowers the square of sand beside the sea at sunrise they both felt at the same moment all the breath and blossoming beauty of that paradise the colored trees the natural and restful nooks and also the great wall of stone more awful than the wall of china from which no flesh could flee Turnbull was mootily balancing his sword in his hand the other spoke then he started for a mouth whispered quite close to his ear with a softness incredible in any cat the huge heavy man in the black cat and frock coat had crept across the lawn from his own side and was saying in his ear don't trust that second of yours he's mad and not so mad either for he's frightfully cunning and sharp don't believe the story he tells you about why I hate him I know the story he'll tell I overheard it when the housekeeper was talking to the postman it's too long to talk about now and I expect we're watched but something in Turnbull made him want suddenly to be sick on the grass the mere healthy and heathen horror of the unclean the mere inhumane hatred of the inhuman state of madness he seemed to hear all round him the hateful whispers of that place innumerable as leaves whispering in the wind and each of them telling eagerly some evil that had not happened or some terrific secret which was not true all the rationalist and plain man revolted within him against bowing down for a moment in that forest of deception and egotistical darkness he wanted to blow up that palace of delusions with dynamite and in some wild way which I will not defend and he tried to do it he looked across at McKeon and said oh I can't stand this can't stand what asked his opponent eyeing him doubtfully shall we say the atmosphere replied Turnbull one can't use on civil expressions even to a deity the fact is I don't like having God for my second sir said that being in a state of great offence in my position I am not used to having my favors refused do you know who I am the editor of the atheist turned upon him like one who has lost all patience and exploded yes you are God aren't you he said abruptly why do we have two sets of teeth teeth spluttered the gentile lunatic teeth yes cried Turnbull advancing on him swiftly and with animated gestures why does teething hurt why do growing pains hurt why are measles catching why does a rose have thorns why do rhinoceroses have horns why is the horn on the top of the nose why haven't I a horn on the top of my nose eh and he struck the bridge of his nose smartly with his forefinger to indicate the place of the omission and then wagged the finger menacingly I've often wanted to meet you he resumed sternly after a pause to hold you accountable for all the idiocy and cruelty of this muddled and meaningless world of yours you make a hundred seeds and only one bears fruit you make a million worlds and only one seems inhabited what do you mean by it eh what do you mean by it the unhappy lunatic had fallen back before this quite little form of attack and lifted his burnt-out cigarette almost like one warding off a blow Turnbull went on like a torrent a man died yesterday in Ealing you murdered him a girl had the toothache in Croydon you gave it to her fifty sailors were drowned off salsy bill you scuttled their ship what have you got to say for yourself eh the representative of omnipotence he had left most of these things to his subordinates he passed a hand over his wrinkling brow and said in a voice much saner than any he had yet used well, if you dislike my assistance of course perhaps the other gentleman the other gentleman cried Turnbull scornfully is a submissive and loyal and obedient gentleman he likes the people who wear crowns whether of diamonds or of stars in the divine rite of kings and it is appropriate enough that he should have the king for his second but it is not appropriate to me that I should have god for my second god is not good enough I dislike and deny the divine rite of kings but I dislike more and I deny more the divine rite of divinity then after a pause in which he swallowed his passion he said to Mekian you have got the right second anyhow the Highlander did not answer but stood as if thunderstruck with one long and heavy thought then at last he turned abruptly to his second in the silk hat and said who are you the man in the silk hat blinked and bridled in effected surprise like one who was in truth accustomed to be doubted I am king Edward the seventh he said with shaky arrogance do you doubt my word I do not doubt it in the least answered Mekian then why said the large man in the silk hat trembling from head to foot why do you wear your hat before the king why should I take it off retorted Mekian with equal heat before a usurper Turnbull swung round on his heel well really he said I thought at least you are a loyal subject I am the only loyal subject answered the gale for nearly thirty years I have walked these islands and have not found another you are always hard to follow remarked Turnbull genially and sometimes so much so as to be hardly worth following I alone am loyal insisted Mekian for I alone am in rebellion I am ready at any instant to restore the stewards I am ready at any instant to defy the Hanovarian brood and I defy it now even when face to face with the actual ruler of the enormous British empire and folding his arms and throwing back his lean hawk like face he hodlily confronted the man with the formal frock coat and the eccentric elbow what right had you stunted German squires he cried to interfere in a quarrel between Scotch and English and Irish gentlemen who made you whose fathers could not splutter English while they walked in Whitehall who made you the judge between the Republic of Sydney and the monarchy of Montrose what had your sires to do with England that they should have the foul offering of the blood of Derwent water and the heart of Jimmy Dawson where are the corpses of Culladin where is the blood of Lockheal Mekian advanced upon his opponent with a bony and pointed finger as if indicating the exact pocket in which the blood of that Cameron was probably capped and Edward the seventh fell back a few paces in considerable confusion what good have you ever done to us he continued in harsher and harsher accents forcing the other back towards the flower beds what good have you ever done you race of German sausages and a barbarian etiquette to throttle the freedom of aristocracy gas of northern metaphysics to blow up broad church bishops like balloons bad pictures and bad manners and pantheism and the Albert Memorial go back to Hanover you humbug go to before the end of this tirade the arrogance of the monarch had entirely given way he had fairly turned tail Mekian strode after him still preaching and flourishing his large lean hands the other two remained in the center of the lawn turnbull in convulsions of laughter the lunatic in convulsions of disgust almost at the same moment a third figure came stepping swiftly across the lawn the advancing figure walked with a stube and yet somehow flung his forked and narrow beard forward and pointed yellow beard was indeed the most emphatic thing about him when he clasped his hands behind him under the tails of his coat he would wake his beard at a man like a big forefinger it performed almost all his gestures it was more important than the glittering eyeglasses through which he looked or the beautiful bleeding voice in which he spoke his face and neck were of a lusty red but lean and stringy he always wore his expensive gold rim eyeglasses slightly askew upon his aquiline nose and he always showed two gleaming foreteeth under his mustache in a smile so perpetual as to earn the reputation of a sneer but for the crooked glasses his dress was always exquisite and but for the smile he was perfectly and perennially depressed don't you think said the newcomer with a sort of supercilious entreaty that we had all better come into breakfast it is such a mistake to wait for breakfast it spoils one's temper so much quite so replied Turnbull seriously there seems almost to have been a little quarreling here said the man with the gotish beard it is a rather long story said Turnbull smiling originally it might be called a phase in the quarrel between science and religion the newcomer started slightly and Turnbull replied to the question on his face oh yes he said I am science I congratulate you heartily answered the other I am Dr. Quail Turnbull's eyes did not move but he realized that the man in the Panama hat had lost all his ease of a landed proprietor and had withdrawn to a distance from the guards where he stood glaring with all the contraction of fear and hatred that can stiffen a cat McKean was sitting somewhat disconsolately on a stump of tree his large black head half buried in his large brown hands when Turnbull strode up to him chewing a cigarette he did not look up but his comrade and enemy addressed him like one who must free himself of his feelings he said that you like your precious religion now I hope you like the society of this poor devil whom your damned tracks and hymns and priests have driven out of his wits five men in this place they tell me five men in this place who might have been fathers of families and every one of them thinks he is God the father oh you may talk about the ugliness of science but there is no one here who thinks he is protoplasm they naturally prefer a bright part said McKean wearily protoplasm is not worth going mad about at least said Turnbull savagely it was your Jesus Christ who started all this bosh about being God for one moment McKean opened the eyes of battle then his tightened lips took a crooked smile and he said quite calmly no the idea is older it was Satan who first said that he was God then what asked Turnbull very slowly as he softly picked a flower what is the difference between Christ and Satan it is quite simple replied the Highlander Christ descended into hell Satan fell into it does it make much odds asked the free thinker it makes all the odds the other one of them wanted to go up and went down the other wanted to go down and went up a God can be humble a devil can only be humbled why are you always wanting to humble a man asked Turnbull knitting his brows it affects me is ungenerous why were you wanting to humble a God when you found him in this garden asked McKean that was an extreme place of impudence said Turnbull granting the man has almighty pretensions I think he was very modest said McKean it is we who are arrogant who know we are only men the ordinary man in the street is more of a monster than that poor fellow for the man in the street treats himself as God almighty when he knows he isn't he expects the universe to turn round him though he knows the center well said Turnbull sitting down on the grass this is a digression anyhow what I want to point out is that your faith does end in asylums and my science doesn't doesn't it by George cried McKean scornfully there are a few men here who are mad on God and a few who are mad on the Bible but I bet there are many more who are simply mad on madness do you really believe it asked the other scores of them I should say answered McKean fellows who have read medical books or fellows whose fathers and uncles had something hereditary in their heads the whole air they breathe is mad all the same said Turnbull shrewdly I bet you haven't found a mad man of that sort I bet I have cried Evan with unusual animation I've been walking about the garden talking to a poor chap all the morning he's simply been broken down and driven raving by your damned science talk about believing one is God why it's quite an old comfortable fireside fancy compared with the sort of things this fellow believes he believes that there is a God but that he is better than God he says God will be afraid to face him he says one is progressing beyond the best he put his arm in mine and whispered in my ear as if it were the apocalypse never trust a God that you can't improve on what can he have meant said the atheist with all his logic awake obviously one should not trust any God that one can improve on it is the way he talks said McKean almost indifferently but he says rummier things but he says that a man's doctor ought to decide what woman he marries and he says that children ought not to be brought up by their parents because a physical partiality will then distort the judgment of the educator oh dear said Turnbull laughing you have certainly come across a pretty hard case and incidentally proved your own I suppose some men do lose their wits through science as through love and other good things and he says went on McKean monotonously that he cannot see why anyone should suppose that a triangle is a three-sided figure he says that on some higher plane Turnbull leapt to his feet as if by an electric shock I never could have believed he cried that you had humor enough to tell a lie you've gone a bit too far old man with your little joke even in a lunatic asylum there can't be anybody who having thought out the matter thinks that a triangle has not got three sides if he exists he must be a new era in human psychology but he doesn't exist I will go and fetch him said McKean calmly I left the poor fellow wandering about by the nasturtium bed McKean vanished and in a few moments returned trailing with him his own discovery among lunatics who was a slender man with a fixed smile and an unfixed and rolling head he had a goat-like beard just long enough to be shaken in a strong wind Turnbull springed to his feet and was like one who is speechless through choking a sudden shout of laughter why you great donkey he shouted in an ear-shattering whisper that's not one of the patients at all that's one of the doctors Evan looked back at the leering head with the long-pointed beard and repeated the word inquiringly one of the doctors oh you know what I mean said Turnbull impatiently the medical authorities of the place Evan was still staring back curiously at the beaming and bearded creature behind him the mad doctors said Turnbull shortly quite so said McKean after a rather restless silence Turnbull plucked McKean by the elbow and pulled him aside for goodness sake he said don't offend this fellow he may be as mad as ten hadders if you like but he has us between his finger and thumb this is the very time he appointed to talk with us about our well our exe yet but what can it matter asked the wondering McKean he can't keep us in the asylum we're not mad Jackass said Turnbull heartily of course we're not mad of course if we are medically examined and the thing is thrashed out they will find we are not mad but don't you see that if the thing is thrashed out it will mean letters to this reference and telegrams to that and that at the first word of who we are we shall be taken out of a mad house where we may smoke to a jail where we may end no if we manage this very quietly he may merely let us out at the front door as stray revelers if there's half an hour of inquiry we are cooked McKean looked at the grass frowningly for a few seconds and then said in a news small and childish voice I am awfully stupid Mr. Turnbull you must be patient with me Turnbull caught Evan's elbow again with quite another gesture come he cried with the harsh voice of one who hides emotion come and let us be tactful in chorus the doctor with the pointed beard was already slanting it forward at a more than usually acute angle with the smile that expressed expectancy I hope I do not hurry you gentlemen he said with the faintest suggestion of a sneer at their hurried consultation but I believe you wanted to see me in class 11 I am most awfully sorry doctor said Turnbull with ready immiability I never meant to keep you waiting but the silly accident that has landed us in your garden may have some rather serious consequences to our friends elsewhere and my friend here was just drawing my attention to some of them quite so quite so said the doctor hurriedly if you really want to put anything I will give you a few moments in my consulting room he led them rapidly into a small but imposing apartment which seemed to be built and furnished entirely in red varnished wood there was one desk occupied with carefully docketed papers and there were several chairs of the red varnished wood though of different shape all along the wall ran something that might have been a bookcase only that it was not filled with books flabs or cases of the same polished dark red consistency what those flat wooden cases were they could form no conception the doctor sat down with a polite impatience on his professional perch mckian remained standing but Turnbull threw himself almost with luxury into a hard wooden arm chair this is a most absurd business doctor he said and I am ashamed to take up the time for professional men with such pranks from outside the plain fact is that he and I and a pack of silly men and girls have organized a game across this part of the country a sort of combination of hair and towns and hide and seek I dare say you've heard of it we are the hairs and seeing your high wall looks so inviting we tumbled over it and naturally we're a little startled with what we found on the other side quite so said the doctor mildly I can understand that you were startled Turnbull had expected him to ask what place was the headquarters of the new exhilarating game and who were the male and female enthusiasts who had brought it to such perfection in fact Turnbull was busy making up these personal and topographical particulars as the doctor did not ask the question he grew slightly uneasy and risked the question I hope you will accept my assurance that the thing was an accident and that no intrusion was meant oh yes sir replied the doctor smiling I accept everything that you say in that case said Turnbull rising genially we must not further interrupt your important duties I suppose there will be someone to let us out no said the doctor still smiling and pleasantly there will be no one to let you out can we let ourselves out then asked Turnbull in some surprise why of course not said the beaming scientist think how dangerous that would be in a place like this then how the devil are we to get out cried Turnbull losing his manners for the first time it is a question of time of receptivity and treatment said the doctor arching his eyebrows indifferently I do not regard either of your cases as incurable and with that the man of the world was struck dumb and as in all intolerable moments the word was with the unworldly McKeon took one stride to the table leaned to cross it and said we can't stop here we are not mad people we don't use the crude phrase said the doctor smiling at his patent leather boots but you can't think us mad thundered McKeon you never saw us before you know nothing about us you haven't even examined us the doctor threw back his head and beard oh yes he said very thoroughly but you can't shut a man up on your mere impressions without documents or certificates or anything the doctor got languidly to his feet quite so he said you certainly ought to see the documents he went across to the curious mock bookshelves and took down one of the flat mahogany cases this he opened with a curious key at his watch chain and laying back a flap revealed a squire of foolscap covered with close but quite clear writing the first three words were in such large copy book hand that they caught the eye even at a distance they were McKeon Evan Stewart Evan bent his angry eagle face over it yet something blurted and he could never swear he saw it distinctly he saw something that began prenatal influences predisposing to mania grandfather believed in return of the stewards mother carried bonus St. Eulalia with which she touched children in sickness early age Evan fell back and fought for his speech he burst out at last if all this world I have walked in had been as sane as my mother was then he compressed his temples with his hands as if to crush them and then lifted suddenly a face that looked fresh and young as if he had dipped and washed it in some holy well very well he cried I will take the sour with the sweet I will pay the penalty of having enjoyed God in this monstrous modern earth that cannot enjoy man or beast I will die happy in your madhouse only because I know what I know let it be granted then McKeon is a mystic McKeon is a maniac but this honest shopkeeper and editor whom I have dragged on my inhuman escapades you cannot keep him he will go free thank God he is not down in any damned document his ancestor I am certain did not die at Culloden his mother I swear had no relics let my friend out of your front door and as for me the doctor had already gone across to the laden shelves and after a few minutes short-sighted peering had pulled down another parallelogram of dark red wood this also he unlocked on the table and with the same unerring egotistic eye one of the company saw the words written in large letters Turnbull James hitherto Turnbull himself had somewhat scornfully surrendered his part in the whole business but he was too honest and unaffected not to start at his own name after the name the inscription appeared to run unique case of a lutheromania parentage as so often in such cases prosaic and healthy the lutheromaniac signs occurred early however leading him to attach himself to the individualist Bradlock recent outbreak of pure anarchy Turnbull slammed the case too almost smashing it and said with a burst of savage laughter oh come along McKeon I don't care so much even about getting out of the mad house only we get out of this room you were right enough McKeon when you spoke about about mad doctors somehow they found themselves out in the cool green garden and then after a stunned silence Turnbull said there is one thing that was puzzling me all the time and I understand it now what do you mean asked Devin no man by will or wit answered Turnbull can get out of this garden and yet we got into it merely by jumping over a garden wall the whole thing explains itself easily enough that undefended wall was an open trap it was a trap laid for two celebrated lunatics they saw us get in right enough and they will see that we do not get out Evan gazed at the garden wall gravely for more than a minute and then he nodded without a word end of chapter 14 recording by Tricia G chapter 15 of the ball and the cross the slipperbox recording is in the public domain the ball and the cross by G. K. Chesterton chapter 15 the dream of McKeon the system of espionage in the asylum was so effective and complete that in practice the patients could often enjoy a sense of almost complete solitude they could stray up so near to the wall in an apparently unwatched garden as to find it easy to jump over it they would only have found the error of their calculations if they had tried to jump under this insulting liberty in this artificial loneliness Evan McKeon was in the habit of creeping out into the garden after dark especially upon moonlit nights the moon indeed was for him always a positive magnet in a manner somewhat hard to explain to those of a robust attitude evidently Apollo is to the fullest poetical as Diana but it is not a question of poetry in the matured and intellectual sense of the word it is a question of a certain solid and childish fancy the sun is in the strict and literal sense invisible that is to say that by our bodily eyes it cannot properly be seen but the moon is a much simpler thing a naked and nursery sort of thing it hangs in the sky quite solid and quite silver and quite useless it is one huge celestial snowball it was at least some such infantile facts and fancies which led Evan again and again during his dehumanized imprisonment to go out as if to shoot the moon he was out in the garden on one such luminous and ghostly night when the steady moonshine toned down all the colors of the garden until almost the strongest tints to be seen were the strong soft blue of the sky and the large lemon moon he was walking with his face turned up to it in that rather half-witted fashion which might have excused the error of his keepers and as he gazed he became aware of something little and lustrous flying close to the lustrous orb like a bright chip knocked off the moon at first he thought it was a mere sparkle or refraction of his own eyesight he blinked and cleared his eyes then he thought it was a falling star only it did not fall it jerked awkwardly up and down in a way unknown among meteors and strangely reminiscent of the works of man the next moment the thing drove right across the moon and from being silver upon blue suddenly became black upon silver then although it passed the field of light in a flash its outline was unmistakable it was a flying ship the vessel took one long and sweeping curve across the sky and came nearer and nearer to McKeon like a steam engine coming round a bend it was a pure white steel and in the moon it gleamed like the armor of Sir Gala had the simile of such virginity is not appropriate for as it grew larger and larger and lower and lower Evans saw that the only figure in it was white from head to foot and crowned with snow white hair on which the moonshine lay like a benediction the figure stood so still that he could easily have supposed it to be a statue indeed he thought it was until it spoke Evans said the voice and it spoke with the simple authority of some forgotten father revisiting his children you have remained here long enough and your sword is wanted elsewhere wanted for what? asked the young man accepting the monstrous event with a queer and clumsy naturalness what is my sword wanted for? for all that you hold dear said the man standing in the moonlight for the thrones of authority and for all ancient loyalty to law Evans looked up at the lunar orb again as if in irrational appeal a moon calf bleeding to his mother the moon but the face of Luna seemed as witless as his own there is no help in nature against the supernatural and he looked again at the tall marble figure that might have been made out of solid moonlight then he said in a loud voice who are you? and the next moment was seized by a sort of choking terror lest his question should be answered but the unknown preserved an impenetrable silence for a long space and then only answered I must not say who I am until the end of the world but I may say what I am I am the law and he lifted his head so that the moon smote full upon his beautiful and ancient face the face was the face of a Greek god grown old but not grown either weak or ugly there was nothing to break its regularity except a rather long chin with a cleft in it and this rather added distinction than lessened beauty his strong well-opened eyes were very brilliant but quite colorless like steel Mekian was one of those to whom a reverence and self-submission in ritual came quite easy and our ordinary things it was not artificial in him to bend slightly to the solemn apparition or to lower his voice when he said do you bring me some message? I do bring you a message answered the man of moon and marble the king has returned Evan did not ask for nor require any explanation I suppose you can take me to the war, he said and the silent silver figure only bowed its head again Mekian clambered into the silver boat and it rose upward to the stars to say that it rose to the stars is no mere metaphor for the sky had cleared to that occasional and astonishing transparency in which one can see plainly both stars and moon as the white-robed figure went upward in his white chariot he said quite quietly to Evan there is an answer to all the folly talked about equality some stars are big and some small some stand still and some circle around them as they stand they can be orderly but they cannot be equal they are all very beautiful said Evan as if in doubt they are all beautiful answered the other because each is in his place and owns his superior and now England will be beautiful after the same fashion the earth will be as beautiful as the heavens because our kings have come back to us the steward began Evan earnestly yes answered the old man that which has returned is steward and yet older than steward it is Capit and Plantagenet and Pendragon it is all that good old time of which proverbs tell that golden reign of Saturn against which gods and men were rebels it is all that was ever lost by insolence and overwhelmed in rebellion it is your own forefather Mckian with the broken sword bleeding without hope at Culloden it is Charles refusing to answer the questions of the rebel court it is Mary of the magic face confronting the gloomy and grasping peers and the boorish moralities of Knox it is Richard the last Plantagenet giving his crown to bowling broke as to a common brigand it is Arthur overwhelmed in Leoness by heathen armies and dying in the mist doubtful if ever he shall return but now said Evan in a low voice but now said the old man he has returned is the war still raging asked Mckian it rages like the pit itself beyond the sea whether I am taking you answered the other but in England the king enjoys his own again the people are once more taught and ruled as his best they are happy knights happy squires happy servants happy serfs if you will but free at last of that load of vexation and lonely vanity which was called being a citizen is England indeed so secure asked Evan look out and see said the guide I fancy you have seen this place before they were driving through the air towards one region of the sky where the hollow of night seemed darkest and which was quite without stars but against this black background their spraying up picked out in glittering silver a dome and a cross it seemed that it was really newly covered with silver which in the strong moonlight was like white flame but however covered or painted Evan had no difficulty in knowing the place again he saw the great thoroughfare that sloped upward to the base of its huge pedestal of steps and he wondered whether the little shop was still by the side of it and whether its window had been mended as the flying ship swept round the dome he observed other alterations the dome had been redecorated so as to give it a more solemn and somewhat more ecclesiastical note the ball was draped or destroyed and round the gallery under the cross ran what looked like a ring of silver statues like the little leadon images that stood round the head of Louis XI round the second gallery at the base of the dome ran a second rank of such images and Evan thought there was another round the steps below when they came closer he saw that they were figures in complete armor of steel or silver each with a naked sword point upward and then he saw one of the swords move these were not statues but an armed order of chivalry thrown in three circles round the cross Mickey and drew in his breath as children do at anything they think utterly beautiful for he could imagine nothing that so echoed his own visions of pontifical or chivalric art as this white dome sitting like a vast silver tiara over London ringed with a triple crown of swords as they went sailing down Ludgate Hill Evan saw that the state of the streets fully answered his companions claim about the reintroduction of order all the old black coated bustle with its cockney vivacity and vulgarity had disappeared groups of laborers quietly but picturesquely clad were passing up and down insufficiently large numbers but it required but a few mounted men to keep the streets in order the mounted men were not common policemen but knights with spurs and plume whose smooth and splendid armor glittered like diamond rather than steel only in one place at the corner of Bowery Street did there appear to be a moment's confusion and that was due to hurry rather than resistance but one old grumbling man did not get out of the way quick enough and the man on horseback struck him but severely across the shoulders with the flat of his sword the soldier had no business to do that said McKeehan sharply the old man was moving as quickly as he could we attach great importance to discipline in the streets said the man in white with a slight smile discipline is not so important as justice said McKeehan the other did not answer then after a swift silence that took them out across St. James's Park he said the people must be taught to obey they must learn their own ignorance and I am not sure he continued turning his back on Evan and looking out of the prow of the ship into the darkness I am not sure that I agree with your little maxim about justice discipline for the whole society is surely more important than justice to an individual Evan who was also leaning over the edge swung round with startling suddenness and stared at the others back discipline for society he repeated very staccato more important justice to individual then after a long silence he called out who and what are you I am an angel said the white-robed figure without turning round you are not a Catholic said McKeehan the other seemed to take no notice but reverted to the main topic in our armies up in heaven we learn to put a wholesome fear into subordinates McKeehan sat craning his neck forward with an extraordinary and unaccountable eagerness go on he cried twisting and untwisting his long bony fingers go on besides continued he in the prow you must allow for a certain high spirit and haughtiness in the superior type go on said Evan with burning eyes just as the sight of sin offends God said the unknown so does the sight of ugliness offend Apollo the beautiful and princely must of necessity be impatient with the squalid and why you great fool cried McKeehan rising to the top of his tremendous stature did you think I would have doubted only for that wrapped with a sword I know that noble orders have bad nights that good nights have bad tempers that the church has rough priests and coarse cardinals I have known it ever since I was born you fool you had only to say yes it is rather a shame and I would have forgotten the affair but I saw in your mouth the twitch of your infernal sophistry I knew that something was wrong with you and your cathedrals something is wrong everything is wrong you are not an angel that is not a church it is not the rightful king who has come home that is unfortunate said the other in a quiet but hard voice because you are going to see his majesty no said McKeehan I am going to jump over the side do you desire death no said Evan quite composedly I desire a miracle from whom do you ask it to whom do you appeal companions sternly you have betrayed the king renounced his cross on the cathedral and insulted an archangel I appeal to God said Evan and sprang up and stood upon the edge of the swaying ship the being in the prow turned slowly round he looked at Evan with eyes which were like two sons and put his hand to his mouth just too late to hide an awful smile and how do you know he said how do you know that I am not God McKeehan screamed ah he cried now I know who you really are you are not God you are not one of God's angels but you were once the being's hand dropped from his mouth and Evan dropped out of the car End of Chapter 15 Recording by Tricia G Chapter 16 The Ball and the Cross The Slipperbox Recording is in the public domain The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton Chapter 16 The Dream of Turnbull Turnbull was walking rather rampantly up and down the garden on a gusty evening chewing his cigar and in that mood when every man suppresses an instinct to spit he was not as a rule a man much acquainted with moods and the storms and sunbursts McKeehan's soul passed before him as an impressive but unmeaning panorama like the anarchy of Highland scenery Turnbull was one of those men in whom a continuous appetite and industry of the intellect leave the emotions very simple and steady his heart was in the right place but he was quite content to leave it there it was his head that was his hobby his mornings and evenings were marked not by impulses but by thirsty desires not by hope or by heartbreak they were filled with the fallacies he had detected the problems he had made plain the adverse theories he had wrestled with and thrown the grand generalizations he had justified but even the cheerful inner life of a logician may be upset by a lunatic asylum to say nothing of whiffs of memory from a lady in Jersey and the little red-bearded man on this windy evening in the dangerous frame of mind plain and positive as he was the influence of earth and sky may have been greater on him than he imagined and the weather that walked the world at that moment was as red and angry as Turnbull long strips and swirls of tattered and tawny cloud were dragged downward to the west exactly as torn red raiment would be dragged and so strong and pitiless was the wind that it whipped away fragments of red flowering bushes or of copper beach and drove them also across the garden a drift of red leaves like the leaves of autumn as in parody of the red and driven regs of cloud there was a sense in earth and heaven as of everything breaking up and all the revolutionist in Turnbull rejoiced that it was breaking up the trees were breaking up under the wind even in the tall strength of their bloom the clouds were breaking up and losing even their large heraldic shapes shards and shreds of copper clouds split off continually and floated by themselves and for some reason the truculent eye of Turnbull was attracted to one of these careering cloudlets which seemed to him to career in an exaggerated manner also it kept its shape which is unusual with clouds shaken off also its shape was of an odd sort Turnbull continued to stare at it and in a little time occurred that crucial instant when a thing however incredible is accepted as a fact the copper cloud was tumbling down towards the earth like some gigantic leaf from the copper beaches and as it came nearer it was evident first that it was not a cloud and second that it was not itself of the color of copper only being burnished like a mirror it had reflected the red brown colors of the burning clouds as the thing whirled like a wind-swept leaf down towards the wall of the garden it was clear that it was some sort of airship made of metal and slapping the air with big broad fins of steel when it came about a hundred feet above the garden a shaggy lean figure leapt up in it almost black against the bronze and scarlet of the west and flinging out a kind of hook or anchor cut on to the golden apple tree just under the wall and from that fixed holding ground the ship swung in the red tempest like a captive balloon while our friend stood frozen for an instant by his astonishment the queer figure in the airy car tipped the vehicle almost upside down by leaping over the side of it seemed to slide or drop down the rope like a monkey and alighted with impossible precision and placidity seated on the edge of the wall over which he kicked and dangled his legs as he grinned at Turnbull the wind roared in the trees yet more ruinous and desolate the red tails of the sunset were dragged downward like red dragons sucked down to death and still on the top of the asylum wall sat the sinister figure with the grimace swinging his feet in tune with the tempest while above him at the end of its tossing or tightened cord the enormous iron airship floated as light and as little noticed as the baby's balloon upon its string Turnbull's first movement after sixty motionless seconds was to turn round and look at the large luxuriant parallelogram of the garden and the long low rectangular building beyond there was not a soul or a stir of life within sight and he had a quite meaningless sensation as if there never had really been anyone else there except he since the foundation of the world stiffening in himself the masculine but mirthless courage of the atheist he drew a little nearer to the wall and catching the man at a slightly different angle of the evening light could see his face and figure quite plain two facts about him stood out in the picked colors of some peretical schoolboy's story the first was that his lean ground body was bare to the belt of his loose white trousers the other was that through hygiene, affectation, or whatever other cause he had a scarlet handkerchief tied tightly but somewhat a slant across his brow after these two facts had become emphatic others appeared sufficiently important one was that under the scarlet rag the hair was plentiful but white as with the last snows of mortality another was that under the mop of white and senile hair the face was strong, handsome and smiling with a well-cut profile and a long cloven chin the length of this lower part of the face and the strange cleft in it which gave the man in quite another sense from the common one a double chin faintly spoiled the claim of the face to absolute regularity but it greatly assisted it in wearing the expression of half-smiling and half-sneering arrogance with which it was staring at all the stones all the flowers but especially at the solitary man what do you want shouted Turnbull I want you Jimmy said the eccentric man on the wall and with the very word he had let himself down with a leap onto the center of the lawn where he bounded once literally like an India rubber ball and then stood grinning with his legs astride the only three facts that Turnbull could now add to his inventory were that the man had an ugly looking knife swinging at his trousers belt that his brown feet were as bare as his bronze trunk and arms and that his eyes had a singular bleak brilliancy which was of no particular color excuse my not being an evening dress said the newcomer with an urbane smile we scientific men you know I have to work my own engines electrical engineer very hot work look here said Turnbull sturdily clenching his fists in his trousers pockets I am bound to expect lunatics inside these four walls but I do bar their coming from outside bang out of the sunset clouds and yet you came from the outside to jam said the stranger in a voice almost affectionate what do you want asked Turnbull with an explosion of temper as sudden as a pistol shot I have already told you said the man lowering his voice and speaking with evidence and serity I want you what do you want with me I want exactly what you want said the newcomer with a new gravity I want the revolution Turnbull looked at the fire swept sky and the wind stricken woodlands and kept on repeating the word voicelessly to himself the word that did indeed so thoroughly express his mood of rage as it had been among those red clouds and rocking tree tops revolution he said to himself the revolution yes that is what I want right enough anything so long as it is a revolution to some cause he could never explain he found himself completing the sentence on the top of the wall having automatically followed the stranger so far but when the stranger silently indicated the rope that led to the machine he found himself pausing and saying I can't leave McKeon behind in this den we are going to destroy the Pope and all the kings said the newcomer would it be wiser to take him with us somehow the muttering Turnbull found himself in the flying ship also and it swung up into the sunset all the great rebels have been very little rebels said the man with the red scarf they have been like fourth form boys who sometimes ventured to hit a fifth form boy that was all the worth of their French revolution and regicide the boys never really dared to defy the school master whom do you mean by the school master asked Turnbull you know whom I mean answered the strange man as he laid back on cushions and looked up into the angry sky they seemed rising into stronger and stronger sunlight as if it were sunrise rather than sunset but when they looked down at the earth they saw it growing darker and darker the lunatic asylum in its large rectangular grounds spread below them in a foreshortened and infantile plan and looked for the first time the grotesque thing that it was but the clear colors of the plan were growing darker every moment the masses of rose or rhododendron deepened from crimson to violet the maze of gravel pathways faded from gold to brown by the time they had risen a few hundred feet higher nothing could be seen of that darkening landscape except the lines of lighted windows each one of which at least was the light of one lost intelligence but on them as they swept upward better and braver winds seemed to blow and on them the ruby light of evening seemed struck and splashed like red spurts from the grapes of Dionysus below them the fallen lights were literally the fallen stars of servitude and above them all the red and raging clouds were like the leaping flags of liberty the man with the cloven chin seemed to have a singular power of understanding thoughts for as Turnbull felt the whole universe tilt and turn over his head the stranger said exactly the right thing doesn't it seem as if everything were being upset he and if once everything is upset he will be upset on top of it then as Turnbull made no answer his host continued that is the really fine thing about space it is topsy-turvy you have only to climb far enough towards the morning star to feel that you are coming down to it you have only to dive deep enough into the abyss to feel that you are rising that is the only glory of this universe then as Turnbull was still silent he added the heavens are full of revolution of the real sort of revolution all the high things are sinking low and all the big things looking small all the people who think they are aspiring find that they are falling head foremost and all the people who think they are condescending find that they are climbing up a precipice that is the intoxication of space that is the only joy of eternity doubt there is only one pleasure the angels can possibly have in flying and that is that they do not know whether they are on their head or their heels then finding his companion still mute he fell himself into a smiling and motionless meditation at the end of which he said suddenly so McKean converted you Turnbull sprang up as if spurning the steel car from under his feet converted me he cried what the devil do you mean I have known him for a month and I have not retracted a single this Catholicism is a curious thing said the man of the cloven chin in uninterrupted reflectiveness leaning his elegant elbows over the edge of the vessel it soaks and weakens men without their knowing it just as I fear it has soaked and weakened you Turnbull stood in an attitude which might well have meant pitching the other man out of the flying ship I am an atheist he said in a stifled voice I have always been an atheist I am still an atheist then addressing the others indolent and indifferent back he cried in God's name what do you mean and the other answered without turning around I mean nothing in God's name Turnbull spat over the edge of the car and fell back furiously into his seat the other continued still unruffled and staring over the edge idly as an angler stares down at a stream the truth is that we never thought that you could have been caught he said we counted on you as the one red hot revolutionary left in the world but of course these men like McKee and are awfully clever especially when they pretend to be stupid Turnbull leapt up again in a living fury and cried what have I got to do with McKee and I believe all I ever believed and disbelieve all I ever disbelieved what does all this mean and what do you want with me here then for the first time the other lifted himself from the edge of the car and faced him I have brought you here he answered to take part in the last war of the world the last war repeated Turnbull even in his dazed state a little touchy about such a dogma how do you know it will be the last the man laid himself back in his reposeful attitude and said it is the last war because if it does not cure the world forever it will destroy it what do you mean I only mean what you mean answered the unknown in a temperate voice what was it that you always meant on those million and one nights you walked outside your Ludgate Hill shop and shook your hand in the air still I do not see said Turnbull stubbornly you will soon said the other and abruptly bent downward one iron handle of his huge machine the engine stopped, stooped and dived almost as deliberately as a man bathing in their downward rush they swept within fifty yards of a big bulk of stone that Turnbull knew only too well the last red anchor of the sunset was ended the dome of heaven was dark the lanes of flaring light in the streets below hardly lit up the base of the building but he saw that it was St. Paul's cathedral and he saw that on the top of it the ball was still standing erect but the cross was stricken and had fallen sideways then only he cared to look down into the streets and saw that they were inflamed with uproar and tossing passions we arrive at a happy moment said the man steering the ship the insurgents are bombarding the city and the cannonball has just hit the cross many of the insurgents are simple people and they naturally regarded as a happy omen quite so said Turnbull in a rather colorless voice yes, replied the other I thought you would be glad to see your prayer answered of course I apologize for the word prayer don't mention it said Turnbull the flying ship had come down upon a sort of curve and was now rising again the higher and higher it rose the broader and broader became the scenes of flame and desolation underneath Ludgate Hill indeed had been an uncaptured and comparatively quiet height altered only by the startling coincidence of the cross fallen awry all the other thoroughfares on all sides of that hill were full of the pulsation and the pain of battle full of shaking torches and shouting faces when at length they had risen high enough to have a bird's eye view of the whole campaign Turnbull was already intoxicated he had smelt gunpowder which was the incense of his own revolutionary religion have the people really risen he asked breathlessly what are they fighting about the program is rather elaborate said his entertainer with some indifference I think Dr. Hertz drew it up Turnbull wrinkled his forehead are all the poor people with the revolution he asked the other shrugged his shoulders all the instructed and class conscious part of them without exception he replied there were certainly a few districts in fact we are passing over them just now Turnbull looked down and saw that the polished car was literally lit up from underneath by the far flung fires from below underneath whole squares and solid districts were in flames like prairies or forests on fire Dr. Hertz has convinced everybody said Turnbull's Cicirone in a smooth voice that nothing can really be done with the real slums his celebrated maxim has been quite adopted I mean the three celebrated sentences no man should be unemployed employ the employables destroy the unemployables there was a silence and then Turnbull said in a rather strained voice and do I understand that this good work is going on under here going on splendidly replied his companion in the heartiest voice you see these people were much too tired and weak even to join the social war they were a definite hindrance to it and so you are simply burning them out it does seem absurdly simple said the man with a beaming smile when one thinks of all the worry and talk about helping a hopeless slave population when the future obviously was only crying to be rid of them there are happy babes unborn ready to burst the doors when these drivelers are swept away will you permit me to say said Turnbull after reflection that I don't like all this and will you permit me to say said the other with a snap that I don't like Mr. Evan McKeon somewhat to the speaker's surprise this did not inflame the sensitive skeptic he had the air of thinking thoroughly and then he said no I don't think it's my friend McKeon that taught me that I think I should always have said that I don't like this these people have rights rights repeated the unknown in a tone quite indescribable then he added with a more open sneer perhaps they also have souls they have lives said Turnbull sternly that is quite enough for me I understood you to say that you thought life's sacred yes indeed cried his mentor with a sort of idealistic animation yes indeed life is sacred lives are not sacred we are improving life by removing lives can you as a free thinker find any fault in that yes said Turnbull with brevity yet you applaud tyrannicide said the stranger with rationalistic gaity how inconsistent it really comes to this you approve of taking away life from those to whom it is a triumph and a pleasure but you will not take away life from those to whom it is a burden and a toil Turnbull rose to his feet in the car with considerable deliberation but his face seemed oddly pale the other went on with enthusiasm life yes life is indeed sacred he cried but new lives for old good lives for bad on that very place where now their sprawls one drunken wastrel of a pavement artist more or less wishing he were dead on that very spot there shall in the future be living pictures there shall be golden girls and boys leaping in the sun Turnbull still standing up opened his lips will you put me down please he said quite calmly like on stopping an omnibus put you down what do you mean cried his leader I am taking you to the front of the revolutionary war where you will be one of the first of the revolutionary leaders thank you replied Turnbull with the same painful constraint I have heard about your revolutionary war and I think on the whole that I would rather be anywhere else do you want to be taken to a monastery snarled the other with McKeon and his winking Madonna's I want to be taken to a madhouse said Turnbull distinctly giving the direction with a sort of precision I want to go back to exactly the same lunatic asylum from which I came why asked the unknown because I want a little sane and wholesome society answered Turnbull there was a long and peculiar silence and then the man driving the flying machine said quite coolly I won't take you back and then Turnbull said equally coolly then I'll jump out of the car the unknown rose to his full height and the expression in his eyes seemed to be made of ironies behind ironies as two mirrors infinitely reflect each other at last he said very gravely do you think I am the devil yes said Turnbull violently for I think the devil is a dream and so are you I don't believe in you or your flying ship or your last fight of the world it is all a nightmare I say as a fact of dogma and faith that it is all a nightmare I will be a martyr for my faith as much as Saint Catherine for I will jump out of this ship and risk waking up safe in bed after swaying twice with the swaying vessel he dived over the side as one dives into the sea for some incredible moments stars and space and planets seemed to shoot up past him as the sparks fly upward and yet in that sickening descent he was full of some unnatural happiness he could connect it with no idea except one that half escaped him what Evan had said of the difference between Christ and Satan that it was by Christ's own choice that he descended into hell when he again realized anything he was lying on his elbow on the lawn of the lunatic asylum and the last red of the sunset had not yet disappeared