3. Mr. Barnstaple as a Traitor to Mankind

by H.G. Wells

　　Section 1

　　Mr. Barnstaple spent a large part of the night sitting upon hisbed and brooding over the incalculable elements of the situationin which he found himself.

　　What could he do? What ought he to do? Where did his loyalty lie?The dark traditions and infections of the earth had turned thiswonderful encounter into an ugly and dangerous antagonism far tooswiftly for him to adjust his mind to the new situation. Before himnow only two possibilities seemed open. Either the Utopians wouldprove themselves altogether the stronger and the wiser and he andall his fellow pirates would be crushed and killed like vermin,or the desperate ambitions of Mr. Catskill would be realized andthey would become a spreading sore in the fair body of this noblecivilization, a band of robbers and destroyers, dragging Utopia yearby year and age by age back to terrestrial conditions. There seemedonly one escape from the dilemma; to get away from this fastness tothe Utopians, to reveal the whole scheme of the Earthlings to them,and to throw himself and his associates upon their mercy. But thismust be done soon, before the hostages were seized and bloodshedbegan.

　　But in the first place it might be very difficult now to get awayfrom the Earthling band. Mr. Catskill would already have organizedwatchers and sentinels, and the peculiar position of the cragexposed every avenue of escape. And in the next place Mr. Barnstaplehad a life-long habit of mind which predisposed him againsttale-bearing and dissentient action. His school training hadmoulded him into subservience to any group or gang in which hefound himself; his form, his side, his house, his school, his club,his party and so forth. Yet his intelligence and his limitlesscuriosities had always been opposed to these narrow conspiraciesagainst the world at large. His spirit had made him an uncomfortablerebel throughout his whole earthly existence. He loathed politicalparties and political leaders, he despised and rejected nationalismand imperialism and all the tawdry loyalties associated with them;the aggressive conqueror, the grabbing financier, the shovingbusiness man, he hated as he hated wasps, rats, hyenas, sharks,fleas, nettles and the like: all his life he had been a citizen ofUtopia exiled upon earth. After his fashion he had sought to serveUtopia. Why should he not serve Utopia now? Because his band wasa little and desperate band, that was no reason why he shouldserve the things he hated. If they were a desperate crew, the factremained that they were also, as a whole, an evil crew. There is noreason why liberalism should degenerate into a morbid passion forminorities....

　　Only two persons among the Earthlings, Lady Stella and Mr. Burleigh,held any of his sympathy. And he had his doubts about Mr. Burleigh.Mr. Burleigh was one of those strange people who seem to understandeverything and feel nothing. He impressed Mr. Barnstaple as beingintelligently irresponsible. Wasn't that really more evil than beingunintelligently adventurous like Hunker or Barralonga?

　　Mr. Barnstaple's mind returned from a long excursion in ethics tothe realities about him. To-morrow he would survey the position andmake his plans, and perhaps in the twilight he would slip away.

　　It was entirely in his character to defer action in this way forthe better part of the day. His life had been one of deferredaction almost from the beginning.

　　Section 2

　　But events could not wait for Mr. Barnstaple.

　　He was called at dawn by Penk, who told him that henceforth thegarrison would be aroused every morning by an electric hooter he andRidley had contrived. As Penk spoke a devastating howl from thiscontrivance inaugurated the new era. He handed Mr. Barnstaple a slipof paper torn from a note-book on which Mr. Catskill had written:--

　　"Non-comb. Barnaby. To assist Ridley prepare breakfast, lunch anddinner, times and menu on mess-room wall, clear away and wash upsmartly and at other times to be at disposal of Lt. Hunker, inchemical laboratory for experimenting and bomb-making. Keeplaboratory clean."

　　"That's your job," said Penk. "Ridley's waitin' for you."

　　"Well," said Mr. Barnstaple, and got up. It was no use precipitatinga quarrel if he was to escape. So he went to the scarred andbandaged Ridley, and they produced a very good imitation of aBritish military kitchen in that great raw year, 1914.

　　Everyone was turned out to breakfast at half-past six by a secondsolo on the hooter. The men were paraded and inspected by Mr.Catskill, with M. Dupont standing beside him; Mr. Hunker stoodparallel with these two and a few yards away; all the other men fellin except Mr. Burleigh, who was to be civil commander in Utopia, andwas, in that capacity, in bed, and Mr. Barnstaple the non-combatant.Miss Greeta Grey and Lady Stella sat in a sunny corner of thecourtyard sewing at a flag. It was to be a blue flag with a whitestar, a design sufficiently unlike any existing national flag toavoid wounding the patriotic susceptibilities of any of the party.It was to represent the Earthling League of Nations.

　　After the parade the little garrison dispersed to its various postsand duties, M. Dupont assumed the chief command, and Mr. Catskill,who had watched all night, went to lie down. He had the Napoleonicquality of going off to sleep for an hour or so at any time in theday.

　　Mr. Penk went up to the top of the castle, where the hooter wasinstalled, to keep a look out.

　　There were some moments to be snatched between the time when Mr.Barnstaple had finished with Ridley and the time when Hunker woulddiscover his help was available, and this time he devoted to aninspection of the castle wall on the side of the slopes. While hewas standing on the old rampart weighing his chances of slippingaway that evening in the twilight, an aeroplane appeared above thecrag and came down upon the nearer slope. Two Utopians descended,talked with their aviator for a time, and then turned their facestowards the fastness of the Earthlings.

　　A single note of the hooter brought out Mr. Catskill upon therampart beside Mr. Barnstaple. He produced a field-glass andsurveyed the approaching figures.

　　"Serpentine and Cedar," he said, lowering his field-glass. "And theycome alone. Good."

　　He turned round and signalled with his hand to Penk, who respondedwith two short whoops of his instrument. This was the signal for ageneral assembly.

　　Down below in the courtyard appeared the rest of the Allied forceand Mr. Hunker and fell in with a reasonable imitation ofdiscipline.

　　Mr. Catskill passed Mr. Barnstaple without taking any notice ofhim, joined M. Dupont, Mr. Hunker and their subordinates below andproceeded to instruct them in his plans for the forthcoming crisis.Mr. Barnstaple could not hear what was said. He noted with sardonicdisapproval that each man, as Mr. Catskill finished with him,clicked his heels together and saluted. Then at a word of commandthey dispersed to their posts.

　　There was a partly ruined flight of steps leading down from thegeneral level of the courtyard through this great archway in thewall that gave access to and from the slopes below. Ridley and Mushwent down to the right of these steps and placed themselves belowa projecting mass of masonry so as to be hidden from anyoneapproaching from below. Father Amerton and Mr. Hunker concealedthemselves similarly to the left. Father Amerton, Mr. Barnstaplenoted, had been given a coil of rope, and then his roving eyediscovered Mr. Mush glancing at a pistol in his hand and thenreplacing it in his pocket. Lord Barralonga took up a position forhimself some steps above Mr. Mush and produced a revolver which heheld in his one efficient hand. Mr. Catskill remained at the headof the stairs. He also was holding a revolver. He turned to thecitadel, considered the case of Penk for a moment, and thenmotioned him down to join the others. M. Dupont, armed with astout table leg, placed himself at Mr. Catskill's right hand.

　　For a time Mr. Barnstaple watched these dispositions without anyrealization of their significance. Then his eyes went from thecrouching figures within the castle to the two unsuspectingUtopians who were coming up towards them, and he realized that ina couple of minutes Serpentine and Cedar would be struggling inthe grip of their captors....

　　He perceived he had to act. And his had been a contemplative,critical life with no habit of decision.

　　He found himself trembling violently.

　　Section 3

　　He still desired some mediatory intervention even in these fatallast moments. He raised an arm and cried "Hi!" as much to theEarthlings below as to the Utopians without. No one noticed eitherhis gesture or his feeble cry.

　　Then his will seemed to break through a tangle of obstacles to onesimple idea. Serpentine and Cedar must not be seized. He was amazedand indignant at his own vacillation. Of course they must not beseized! This foolery must be thwarted forthwith. In four strides hewas on the wall above the archway and now he was shouting loud andclear. "Danger!" he shouted. "Danger!" and again "Danger!"

　　He heard Catskill's cry of astonishment and then a pistol bulletwhipped through the air close to him.

　　Serpentine stopped short and looked up, touched Cedar's arm andpointed.

　　"These Earthlings want to imprison you. Don't come here! Danger!"yelled Mr. Barnstaple waving his arms and "pat, pat, pat," Mr.Catskill experienced the disappointments of revolver shooting.

　　Serpentine and Cedar were turning back--but slowly and hesitatingly.

　　For a moment Mr. Catskill knew not what to do. Then he flung himselfdown the steps, crying, "After them! Stop them! Come on!"

　　"Go back!" cried Mr. Barnstaple to the Utopians. "Go back! Quickly!Quickly!"

　　Came a clatter of feet from below and then the eight men whoconstituted the combatant strength of the Earthling forces in Utopiaemerged from under the archway running towards the two astonishedUtopians. Mr. Mush led, with Ridley at his heels; he was pointing hisrevolver and shouting. Next came M. Dupont zealous and active. FatherAmerton brought up the rear with the rope.

　　"Go back!" screamed Mr. Barnstaple, with his voice breaking.

　　Then he stopped shouting and watched--with his hands clenched.

　　The aviator was running down the slope from his machine to theassistance of Serpentine and Cedar. And above out of the blue twoother aeroplanes had appeared.

　　The two Utopians disdained to hurry and in a few seconds theirpursuers had come up with them. Hunker, Ridley and Mush led theattack. M. Dupont, flourishing his stick, was abreast with them butrunning out to the right as though he intended to get between themand the aviator. Mr. Catskill and Penk were a little behind theleading three; the one-armed Barralonga was perhaps ten yards behindand Father Amerton had halted to re-coil his rope more conveniently.

　　There seemed to be a moment's parley and then Serpentine had movedquickly as if to seize Hunker. A pistol cracked and then anotherwent off rapidly three times. "Oh God!" cried Mr. Barnstaple. "OhGod!" as he saw Serpentine throw up his arms and fall backward,and then Cedar had grasped and lifted up Mush and hurled himat Mr. Catskill and Penk, bowling both of them over into oneindistinguishable heap. With a wild cry M. Dupont closed in onCedar but not quickly enough. His club shot into the air as Cedarparried his blow, and then the Utopian stooped, caught him by aleg, overthrew him, lifted him and whirled him round as one mightwhirl a rabbit, to inflict a stunning blow on Mr. Hunker.

　　Lord Barralonga ran back some paces and began shooting at theapproaching aviator.

　　The confusion of legs and arms on the ground became three separatepeople again. Mr. Catskill shouting directions, made for Cedar,followed by Penk and Mush and, a moment after by Hunker and Dupont.They clung to Cedar as hounds will cling to a boar. Time after timehe flung them off him. Father Amerton hovered unhelpfully with hisrope.

　　For some moments Mr. Barnstaple's attention was concentrated uponthis swaying and staggering attempt to overpower Cedar, and then hebecame aware of other Utopians running down the slope to join thefray.... The other two aeroplanes had landed.

　　Mr. Catskill realized the coming of these reinforcements almost assoon as Mr. Barnstaple. His shouts of "Back! Back to the castle!"reached Mr. Barnstaple's ears. The Earthlings scattered away fromthe tall dishevelled figure, hesitated, and began walk and then runback towards the castle.

　　And then Ridley turned and very deliberately shot Cedar, whoclutched at his breast and fell into a sitting position.

　　The Earthlings retreated to the foot of the steps that led upthrough the archway into the castle, and stood there in a panting,bruised and ruffled group. Fifty yards away Serpentine lay still,the aviator whom Barralonga had shot writhed and moaned, and Cedarsat up with blood upon his chest trying to feel his back. Five otherUtopians came hurrying to their assistance.

　　"What is all this firing?" said Lady Stella, suddenly at Mr.Barnstaple's elbow.

　　"Have they caught their hostages?" asked Miss Greeta Grey.

　　"For the life of me!" said Mr. Burleigh, who had come out upon thewall a yard or so away, "this ought never to have happened. How didthis get--_muffed_, Lady Stella?"

　　"I called out to them," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"_You_--called--out to them!" said Mr. Burleigh incredulous.

　　"Treason I did not calculate upon," came the wrathful voice of Mr.Catskill ascending out of the archway.

　　Section 4

　　For some moments Mr. Barnstaple made no attempt to escape the dangerthat closed in upon him. He had always lived a life of very greatsecurity and with him, as with so many highly civilized types, thepower of apprehending personal danger was very largely atrophied. Hewas a spectator by temperament and training alike. He stood now asif he looked at himself, the central figure of a great and hopelesstragedy. The idea of flight came belatedly, in a reluctant andapologetic manner into his mind.

　　"Shot as a traitor," he said aloud. "Shot as a traitor."

　　There was that bridge over the narrow gorge. He might still get overthat, if he went for it at once. If he was quick--quicker than theywere. He was too intelligent to dash off for it; that wouldcertainly have set the others running. He walked along the wall ina leisurely fashion past Mr. Burleigh, himself too civilized tointervene. In a quickening stroll he gained the steps that ledto the citadel. Then he stood still for a moment to survey thesituation. Catskill was busy setting sentinels at the gate. Perhapshe had not thought yet of the little bridge and imagined that Mr.Barnstaple was at his disposal at any time that suited him. Up theslope the Utopians were carrying off the dead or wounded men.

　　Mr. Barnstaple ascended the steps as if buried in thought and stoodon the citadel for some seconds, his hands in his trouser pockets,as if he surveyed the view. Then he turned to the winding staircasethat went down to a sort of guard-room below. As soon as he wassurely out of sight he began to think and move very quickly.

　　The guard-room was perplexing. It had five doors, any one of whichexcept the one by which he had just entered the room, might leaddown to the staircase. Against one, however, stood a pile of neatpacking-cases. That left three to choose from, He ran from one tothe other leaving each door open. In each case stone steps ran downto a landing and a turning place. He stood hesitating at the thirdand noted that a cold draught came blowing up from it. Surely thatmeant that this went down to the cliff face, or whence came the air?Surely this was it!

　　Should he shut the doors he had opened? No! Leave them all open.

　　He heard a clatter coming down the staircase from the citadel.Softly and swiftly he ran down the steps and halted for a secondat the corner landing. He was compelled to stop and listen to themovements of his pursuers. "This is the door to the bridge, Sir!"he heard Ridley cry, and then he heard Catskill say, "The TarpeianRock," and Barralonga, "Exactly! Why should we waste a cartridge?Are you sure this goes to the bridge, Ridley?"

　　The footsteps pattered across the guard-room and passed--down oneof the other staircases.

　　"A reprieve!" whispered Mr. Barnstaple and then stopped aghast.

　　He was trapped! The staircase they were on was the staircase tothe bridge!

　　They would go down as far as the bridge and as soon as they got toit they would see that he was neither on it nor on the steps on theopposite side of the gorge and that therefore he could notpossibly have escaped. They would certainly bar that way eitherby closing and fastening any door there might be or, failing sucha barrier, by setting a sentinel, and then they would come backand hunt for him at their leisure.

　　What was it Catskill had been saying? The Tarpeian Rock?...

　　Horrible!

　　They mustn't take him alive....

　　He must fight like a rat in a corner and oblige them to shoot him....

　　He went on down the staircase. It became very dark and then grewlight again. It ended in an ordinary big cellar, which may once havebeen a gun-pit or magazine. It was fairly well lit by two unglazedwindows cut in the rock. It now contained a store of provisions.Along one side stood an array of the flask-like bottles that wereused for wine in Utopia; along the other was a miscellany ofpacking-cases and cubes wrapped in gold-leaf. He lifted one of theglass flasks by its neck. It would make an effective club. Supposehe made a sort of barrier of the packing-cases across the entranceand stood beside it and clubbed the pursuers as they came in! Glassand wine would smash over their skulls.... It would take time tomake the barrier.... He chose and carried three of the largerflasks to the doorway where they would be handy for him. Then hehad an inspiration and looked at the window.

　　He listened at the door of the staircase for a time. Not a soundcame from above. He went to the window and lay down in the deepembrasure and wriggled forward until he could see out and up anddown. The cliff below fell sheer; he could have spat on to thebrawling torrent fifteen hundred feet perhaps below. The crag herewas made up of almost vertical strata which projected and receded; abig buttress hid almost all of the bridge except the far end whichseemed to be about twenty or thirty yards lower than the openingfrom which Mr. Barnstaple was looking. Mr. Catskill appearedupon this bridge, very small and distant, scrutinizing the rockystair-way beyond the bridge. Mr. Barnstaple withdrew his headhastily. Then very discreetly he peeped again. Mr. Catskill wasno longer to be seen. He was coming back.

　　To business! There was not much time.

　　In his earlier days before the Great War had made travel dearand uncomfortable Mr. Barnstaple had done some rock climbing inSwitzerland and he had also had some experience in Cumberland andWales. He surveyed now the rocks close at hand with an intelligentexpertness. They were cut by almost horizontal joint planes intowhich there had been a considerable infiltration chiefly of whitecrystalline material. This stuff, which he guessed was calcite,had weathered more rapidly than the general material of the rock,leaving a series of irregular horizontal grooves. With luck itmight be possible to work along the cliff face, turn the buttressand scramble to the bridge.

　　And then came an even more hopeful idea. He could easily get alongthe cliff face to the first recess, flatten himself there andremain until the Earthlings had searched his cellar. After they hadsearched he might creep back to the cellar. Even if they lookedout of the window they would not see him and even if he leftfinger marks and so forth in the embrasure, they would be likely toconclude that he had either jumped or fallen down the crag into thegorge below. But at first it might be slow work negotiating the cliffface.... And this would cut him off from his weapons, the flasks....

　　But the idea of hiding in the recess had taken a strong hold uponhis imagination. Very cautiously he got out of the window, found ahandhold, got his feet on to his ledge and began to work his wayalong towards his niche.

　　But there were unexpected difficulties, a gap of nearly five yardsin the handhold--nothing. He had to flatten himself and trust to hisfeet and for a time he remained quite still in that position.

　　Further on was a rotten lump of the vein mineral and it broke awayunder him very disconcertingly, but happily his fingers had a gripand the other foot was firm. The detached crystals slithered downthe rock face for a moment and then made no further sound. They haddropped into the void. For a time he was paralyzed.

　　"I'm not in good form," whispered Mr. Barnstaple. "I'm not in goodform."

　　He clung motionless and prayed.

　　With an effort he resumed his traverse.

　　He was at the very corner of the recess when some faint noise drewhis eyes to the window from which he had emerged. Ridley's face waspoked out slowly and cautiously, his eye red and fierce among hiswhite bandages.

　　Section 5

　　He did not at first see Mr. Barnstaple. "Gawd!" he said when hedid so and withdrew his head hastily.

　　Came a sound of voices saying indistinguishable things.

　　Some inappropriate instinct kept Mr. Barnstaple quite still, thoughhe could have got into cover in the recess quite easily before Mr.Catskill looked out revolver in hand.

　　For some moments they stared at each other in silence.

　　"Come back or I shoot," said Mr. Catskill unconvincingly.

　　"Shoot!" said Mr. Barnstaple after a moment's reflection.

　　Mr. Catskill craned his head out and stared down into the shadowyblue depths of the canyon. "It isn't necessary," he answered. "Wehave to save cartridges."

　　"You haven't the guts," said Mr. Barnstaple.

　　"It's not quite that," said Mr. Catskill.

　　"No," said Mr. Barnstaple, "it isn't. You are fundamentally acivilized man."

　　Mr. Catskill scowled at him without hostility.

　　"You have a very good imagination," Mr. Barnstaple reflected. "Thetrouble is that you have been so damnably educated. What is thetrouble with you? You are be-Kiplinged. Empire and Anglo-Saxon andboy-scout and sleuth are the stuff in your mind. If I had gone toEton I might have been the same as you are, I suppose."

　　"Harrow," corrected Mr. Catskill.

　　"A perfectly _beastly_ public school. Suburban place where the boyswear chignons and straw haloes. I might have guessed Harrow. Butit's queer I bear you no malice. Given decent ideas you might havebeen very different from what you are. If I had been yourschoolmaster-- But it's too late now."

　　"It is," said Mr. Rupert Catskill smiling genially and cocked hiseye down into the canyon.

　　Mr. Barnstaple began to feel for his ledge round the corner withone foot.

　　"Don't go for a minute," said Mr. Catskill. "I'm not going toshoot."

　　A voice from within, probably Lord Barralonga's, said somethingabout heaving a rock at Mr. Barnstaple. Someone else, probablyRidley, approved ferociously.

　　"Not without due form of trial," said Mr. Catskill over hisshoulder. His face was inscrutable, but a fantastic idea began torun about in Mr. Barnstaple's mind that Mr. Catskill did not want tohave him killed. He had thought about things and he wanted him nowto escape--to the Utopians and perhaps rig up some sort of settlementwith them.

　　"We intend to try you, Sir," said Mr. Catskill. "We intend to tryyou. We cite you to appear."

　　Mr. Catskill moistened his lips and considered. "The court will sitalmost at once." His little bright brown eyes estimated the chancesof Mr. Barnstaple's position very rapidly. He craned towards thebridge. "We shall not waste time over our procedure," he said. "AndI have little doubt of our verdict. We shall condemn you to death.So--there you are, Sir. I doubt if we shall be more than a quarterof an hour before your fate is legally settled."

　　He glanced up trying to see the crest of the crag. "We shall probablythrow rocks," he said.

　　"Moriturus te saluo," said Mr. Barnstaple with an air of making awitty remark. "If you will forgive me I will go on now to find amore comfortable position."

　　Mr. Catskill remained looking hard at him.

　　"I've never borne you any ill-will," said Mr. Barnstaple. "Had Ibeen your schoolmaster everything might have been different. Thanksfor the quarter of an hour more you give me. And if by any chance--"

　　"Exactly," said Mr. Catskill.

　　They understood one another.

　　When Mr. Barnstaple stepped round the bend into the recess Mr.Catskill was still looking out and Lord Barralonga was faintlyaudible advocating the immediate heaving of rocks.

　　Section 6

　　The ways of the human mind are past finding out. From desperationMr. Barnstaple's mood had passed to exhilaration. His first sickhorror of climbing above this immense height had given place now toan almost boyish assurance. His sense of immediate death had gone.He was appreciating this adventure, indeed he was enjoying it, withan entire disregard now of how it was to end.

　　He made fairly good time until he got to the angle of the buttress,though his arms began to ache rather badly, and then he had a shock.He had now a full view of the bridge and up the narrow gorge. Theledge he was working along did not run to the bridge at all. It rana good thirty feet below it. And what was worse, between himself andthe bridge were two gullies and chimneys of uncertain depth. At thisdiscovery he regretted for the first time that he had not stayed inthe cellar and made a fight for it there.

　　He had some minutes of indecision--with the ache in his armsincreasing.

　　He was roused from his inaction by what he thought at first was theshadow of a swift-flying bird on the rock. Presently it returned. Hehoped he was not to be assailed by birds. He had read a story--butnever mind that now.

　　Then came a loud crack overhead, and he glanced up to see a lump ofrock which had just struck a little bulge above him fly tofragments. From which incident he gathered firstly that the courthad delivered an adverse verdict rather in advance of Mr. Catskill'stime, and secondly that he was visible from above. He resumed histraverse towards the shelter of the gully with feverish energy.

　　The gully was better than he expected, a chimney; difficult, hethought, to ascend, but quite practicable downward. It wascompletely overhung. And perhaps a hundred feet below there was asort of step in it that gave a quite broad recess, sheltered fromabove and with room enough for a man to sprawl on it if he wanted todo so. There would be rest for Mr. Barnstaple's arms, and withoutany needless delay he clambered down to it and abandoned himselfto the delightful sensation of not holding on to anything. He wasout of sight and out of reach of his Earthling pursuers.

　　In the back of the recess was a trickle of water. He drank andbegan to think of food and to regret that he had not brought someprovision with him from the store in the cellar. He might haveopened one of those gold-leaf-covered cubes or pocketed a smallflask of wine. Wine would be very heartening just now. But it didnot do to think of that. He stayed for a long time, as it seemed tohim, on this precious shelf, scrutinizing the chimney below verycarefully. It seemed quite practicable for a long way down. Thesides became very smooth, but they seemed close enough together toget down with his back against one side and his feet against theother.

　　He looked at his wrist-watch. It was still not nine o'clock in themorning--it was about ten minutes to nine. He had been called byRidley before half-past five. At half-past six he had been handingout breakfast in the courtyard. Serpentine and Cedar must haveappeared about eight o'clock. In about ten minutes Serpentine hadbeen murdered. Then the flight and the pursuit. How quickly thingshad happened!...

　　He had all day before him. He would resume his descent at half-pastnine. Until then he would rest.... It was absurd to feel hungryyet....

　　He was climbing again before half-past nine. For perhaps a hundredfeet it was easy. Then by imperceptible degrees the gully broadened.He only realized it when he found himself slipping. He slipped,struggling furiously, for perhaps twenty feet, and then felloutright another ten and struck a rock and was held by a secondshelf much broader than the one above. He came down on it with ajarring concussion and rolled--happily he rolled inward. He wasbruised, but not seriously hurt. "My luck," he said. "My luck holdsgood."

　　He rested for a time, and then, confident that things would be allright, set himself to inspect the next stage of his descent. It waswith a sort of incredulity that he discovered the chimney below hisshelf was absolutely unclimbable. It was just a straight, smoothrock on either side for twenty yards at least and six feet wide. Hemight as well fling himself over at once as try to get down that.Then he saw that it was equally impossible to retrace his steps. Hecould not believe it; it seemed too silly. He laughed as one mightlaugh if one found one's own mother refusing to recognize one aftera day's absence.

　　Then abruptly he stopped laughing.

　　He repeated every point in his examination. He fingered the smoothrocks about him. "But this is absurd," he said breaking out into acold perspiration. There was no way out of this corner into which hehad so painfully and laboriously got himself. He could neither go onnor go back. He was caught. His luck had given out.

　　Section 7

　　At midday by his wrist-watch Mr. Barnstaple was sitting in hisrecess as a weary invalid suffering from some incurable diseasemight sit up in an arm-chair during a temporary respite from pain,with nothing to do and no hope before him. There was not one chancein ten thousand that anything could happen to release him from thistrap into which he had clambered. There was a trickle of water atthe back but no food, not even a grass blade to nibble. Unless hesaw fit to pitch himself over into the gorge, he must starve todeath.... It would perhaps be cold at nights but not cold enough tokill him.

　　To this end he had come then out of the worried journalism of Londonand the domesticities of Sydenham.

　　Queer journey it was that he and the Yellow Peril had made!--Camberwell,Victoria, Hounslow, Slough, Utopia, the mountain paradise, a hundredfascinating and tantalizing glimpses of a world of real happinessand order, that long, long aeroplane flight half round a world....And now--death.

　　The idea of abbreviating his sufferings by jumping over had noappeal for him. He would stay here and suffer such suffering asthere might be before the end. And three hundred yards away or sowere his fellow Earthlings, also awaiting their fate.... It wasamazing. It was prosaic....

　　After all to this or something like this most humanity had to come.

　　Sooner or later people had to live and suffer, they had to think andthen think feverishly and then weakly, and so fade to a finalcessation of thought.

　　On the whole, he thought, it was preferable to die in this fashion,preferable to a sudden death, it was worth while to look death inthe face for a time, have leisure to write finis in one's mind, tothink over life and such living as one had done and think it over witha detachment, an independence, that only an entire inability to alterone jot of it now could give.

　　At present his mind was clear and calm; a bleak serenity like aclear winter sky possessed him. There was suffering ahead, he knew,but he did not believe it would be intolerable suffering. If itproved intolerable the canyon yawned below. In that respect thisshelf or rock was a better death bed than most, a more convenientdeath bed. Your sick bed presented pain with a wide margin, setit up for your too complete examination. But to starve was not sovery dreadful, he had read; hunger and pain there would be, mostdistressful about the third day, and after that one became feebleand did not feel so much. It would not be like the torture of manycancer cases or the agony of brain fever; it would not be one titheas bad as that. Lonely it would be. But is one much less lonely ona death bed at home? They come and say, "There! there!" and dolittle serviceable things--but are there any other interchanges?...You go your solitary way, speech and movement and the desire tospeak or move passing from you, and their voices fade.... Everywheredeath is a very solitary act, a going apart....

　　A younger man would probably have found this loneliness in the gorgevery terrible, but Mr. Barnstaple had outlived the intenserdelusions of companionship. He would have liked a last talk with hisboys and to have put his wife into a good frame of mind, but eventhese desires were perhaps more sentimental than real. When it cameto talks with his boys he was apt to feel shy. As they had come tohave personalities of their own and to grow through adolescence,he had felt more and more that talking intimately to them was aninvasion of their right to grow up along their own lines. And theytoo he felt were shy with him, defensively shy. Perhaps later onsons came back to a man--that was a later on that he would neverknow now. But he wished he could have let them know what hadhappened to him. That troubled him. It would set him right in theireyes, it would perhaps be better for their characters, if they didnot think--as they were almost bound to think--that he had run awayfrom them or lapsed mentally or even fallen into bad company andbeen made away with. As it was they might be worried and ashamed,needlessly, or put to expense to find out where he was, and thatwould be a pity.

　　One had to die. Many men had died as he was going to die, falleninto strange places, lost in dark caverns, marooned on desertislands, astray in the Australian bush, imprisoned and left toperish. It was good to die without great anguish or insult. Hethought of the myriads of men who had been crucified by theRomans--was it eight thousand or was it ten thousand of the army ofSpartacus that they killed in that fashion along the Appian Way?--ofnegroes hung in chains to starve, and of an endless variety of suchdeaths. Shocking to young imaginations such things were and morefearful in thought than in reality. It is all a matter of a littlemore pain or a little less pain--but God will not have any greatwaste of pain. Cross, wheel, electric chair or bed of suffering--thething is, _you die and have done_.

　　It was pleasant to find that one could think stoutly of thesethings. It was good to be caught and to find that one was notfrantic. And Mr. Barnstaple was surprised to find how little hecared, now that he faced the issue closely, whether he was immortalor whether he was not. He was quite prepared to find himselfimmortal or at least not ending with death, in whole or in part. Itwas ridiculous to be dogmatic and say that a part, an impression, ofhis conscience and even of his willing life might not go on in somefashion. But he found it impossible to imagine how that could be. Itwas unimaginable. It was not to be anticipated. He had no fear ofthat continuation. He had no thought nor fear of the possibility ofpunishment or cruelty. The universe had at times seemed to him to bevery carelessly put together, but he had never believed that it wasthe work of a malignant imbecile. It impressed him as immenselycareless but not as dominatingly cruel. He had been what he hadbeen, weak and limited and sometimes silly, but the punishment ofthese defects lay in the defects themselves.

　　He ceased to think about his own death. He began to think of lifegenerally, its present lowliness, its valiant aspiration. He foundhimself regretting bitterly that he was not to see more of thisUtopian world, which was in so many respects so near an intimationof what our own world may become. It had been very heartening to seehuman dreams and human ideals vindicated by realization, but it wasdistressing to have had the vision snatched away while he was stillonly beginning to examine it. He found himself asking questions thathad no answers for him, about economics, about love and struggle.Anyhow, he was glad to have seen as much as he had. It was good tohave been purged by this vision and altogether lifted out of thedreary hopelessness of Mr. Peeve, to have got life into perspectiveagain.

　　The passions and conflicts and discomforts of A.D. 1921 were thediscomforts of the fever of an uninoculated world. The Age ofConfusion on the earth also would, in its own time, work itself out,thanks to a certain obscure and indomitable righteousness in theblood of the human type. Squatting in a hole in the cliff of thegreat crag, with unclimbable heights and depths above him and below,chilly, hungry and uncomfortable, this thought was a profoundcomfort to the strangely constituted mind of Mr. Barnstaple.

　　But how miserably had he and his companions failed to rise to thegreat occasions of Utopia! No one had raised an effectual hand torestrain the puerile imaginations of Mr. Catskill and the merebrutal aggressiveness of his companions. How invincibly had FatherAmerton headed for the role of the ranting, hating, persecuting,quarrel-making priest. How pitifully weak and dishonest Mr.Burleigh--and himself scarcely better! disapproving always andalways in ineffective opposition. What an unintelligent beauty-cowthat woman Greeta Grey was, receptive, acquisitive, impenetrable toany idea but the idea of what was due to her as a yielding female!Lady Stella was of finer clay, but fired to no service. Women, hethought, had not been well represented in this chance expedition,just one waster and one ineffective. Was that a fair sample ofearth's womankind?

　　All the use these Earthlings had had for Utopia was to turn it backas speedily as possible to the aggressions, subjugations, crueltiesand disorders of the Age of Confusion to which they belonged.Serpentine and Cedar, the man of scientific power and the man ofhealing, they had sought to make hostages to disorder, and failingthat they had killed or sought to kill them.

　　They had tried to bring back Utopia to the state of earth, andindeed but for the folly, malice and weakness of men earth was nowUtopia. Old Earth was Utopia now, a garden and a glory, the EarthlyParadise, except that it was trampled to dust and ruin by itsCatskills, Hunkers, Barralongas, Ridleys, Duponts and their kind.Against their hasty trampling folly nothing was pitted, it seemed,in the whole wide world at present but the whinings of the Peeves,the acquiescent disapproval of the Burleighs and such immeasurableineffectiveness as his own protest. And a few writers and teacherswho produced results at present untraceable.

　　Once more Mr. Barnstaple found himself thinking of his old friend,the school inspector and school-book writer, who had worked sosteadfastly and broken down and died so pitifully. He had workedfor Utopia all his days. Were there hundreds or thousands of suchUtopians yet on earth? What magic upheld them?

　　"I wish I could get some message through to them," said Mr.Barnstaple, "to hearten them."

　　For it was true, though he himself had to starve and die like abeast fallen into a pit, nevertheless Utopia triumphed and wouldtriumph. The grabbers and fighters, the persecutors and patriots,the lynchers and boycotters and all the riff-raff of short-sightedhuman violence, crowded on to final defeat. Even in their lives theyknow no happiness, they drive from excitement to excitement and fromgratification to exhaustion. Their enterprises and successes, theirwars and glories, flare and pass. Only the true thing grows, thetruth, the clear idea, year by year and age by age, slowly andinvincibly as a diamond grows amidst the darkness and pressures ofthe earth, or as the dawn grows amidst the guttering lights of somebelated orgy.

　　What would be the end of those poor little people up above there?Their hold on life was even more precarious than his own, for hemight lie and starve here slowly for weeks before his mind gave itslast flicker. But they had openly pitted themselves against themight and wisdom of Utopia, and even now the ordered power of thatworld must be closing in upon them. He still had a faint irrationalremorse for his betrayal of Catskill's ambush. He smiled now at thepassionate conviction he had felt at the time that if once Catskillcould capture his hostages, earth might prevail over Utopia. Thatconviction had rushed him into action. His weak cries had seemed tobe all that was left to avert this monstrous disaster. But supposehe had not been there at all, or suppose he had obeyed the lingeringinstinct of fellowship that urged him to fight with the others; whatthen?

　　When he recalled the sight of Cedar throwing Mush about as one mightthrow a lap-dog about, and the height and shape of Serpentine, hedoubted whether even upon the stairs in the archway it would havebeen possible for the Earthlings to have overpowered these two. Therevolvers would have come into use just as they had come into useupon the slope, and Catskill would have got no hostages but only twomurdered men.

　　How unutterably silly the whole scheme of Catskill had been! Butit was no sillier than the behaviour of Catskill, Burleigh and therest of the world's statesmen had been on earth, during the lastfew years. At times during the world agony of the Great War it hadseemed that Utopia drew near to earth. The black clouds and smoke ofthese dark years had been shot with the light of strange hopes, withthe promise of a world reborn. But the nationalists, financiers,priests and patriots had brought all those hopes to nothing.They had trusted to old poisons and infections and to the weakresistances of the civilized spirit. They had counted their weaponsand set their ambushes and kept their women busy sewing flags ofdiscord....

　　For a time they had killed hope, but only for a time. For Hope, theredeemer of mankind, there is perpetual resurrection.

　　"Utopia will win," said Mr. Barnstaple and for a time he satlistening to a sound he had heard before without heeding it verygreatly, a purring throb in the rocks about him, like the runningof some great machine. It grew louder and then faded down to theimperceptible again.

　　His thoughts came back to his erstwhile companions. He hoped theywere not too miserable or afraid up there. He was particularlydesirous that something should happen to keep up Lady Stella'scourage. He worried affectionately about Lady Stella. For the restit would be as well if they remained actively combative to the end.Possibly they were all toiling at some preposterous and wildlyhopeful defensive scheme of Catskill's. Except Mr. Burleigh whowould be resting--convinced that for him at least there would stillbe a gentlemanly way out. And probably not much afraid if therewasn't. Amerton and possibly Mush might lapse into a religiousrevival--that would irritate the others a little, or possibly evenprovide a mental opiate for Lady Stella and Miss Greeta Grey. Thenfor Penk there was wine in the cellar....

　　They would follow the laws of their being, they would do the thingsthat nature and habit would require of them. What else was possible?

　　Mr. Barnstaple plunged into a metaphysical gulf....

　　Presently he caught himself looking at his wrist-watch. It wastwenty minutes past twelve. He was looking at his watch more andmore frequently or time was going more slowly.... Should he windhis watch or let it run down? He was already feeling very hungry.That could not be real hunger yet; it must be his imaginationgetting out of control.