‘To all great nations,’ he observed, ‘might is right. Today we hear much talk of the rights of small nations—and to what does it amount? Nothing but so much dust in the wind to fill the eyes of those who would see.’
He glowered upon his councillors. Each appeared occupied in an interested study of the mosaic floor; the beauty of its patterns was more soothing than the expression on the Prince’s face. More than one grimy forefinger scratched in its owner’s beard in order to give a misleading suggestion of thought.
The council was formed entirely of old men. Not that old men are always wise, but they do have the advantage of less fiery ambition, and, whether one is a Prince in Ghangistan, or a Big Shot in Chicago, too much ambition at court will prove embarrassing. The ambitions of most of the council rose little higher than a bountiful supply of food and drink and an occasional change of wives. The Prince continued to address unresponsive figures:
‘What can we do? These English, and other foreigners, trifle with us. They do not so much as stir to consider our demands. We are treated like children—we, of Ghangistan, whose temples and palaces were weathered when these English hid in caves, whose ancestors reach back unbroken to the creation. We offer them war, and they laugh as one laughs at the ferocity of a cornered mouse. Here we must sit, impotent, while they pour over our country the froth and ferment of their way of life, in mockery of the wisdom of our sacred ancestors.’
Again the Prince paused and looked questioningly about him. At the lack of response he shrugged his shoulders; some of the spirit seemed to go out of him, and he threw out his hands in token of helplessness.
‘And we can do nothing. We have no big guns, no aeroplanes. We must sit by and watch our ancient race seduced from its gods, and hear the voice of wisdom drowned by the sounding emptiness of materialism.’
He finished dejectedly. His anger had subsided beneath fatalism, and he brooded amid the respectful, if slightly bored silence of the council. One ancient looked up and studied the Prince. He allowed a decent interval to elapse before he inquired :
‘Is it permitted to speak?’
The Prince regarded him with but little lifting of his despondency. ‘It is permitted to you, Haramin,’ he agreed.
The old man stroked his beard for some moments in placid reflection.
‘It has seemed to me,’ he began with slow deliberateness, ‘that already we are more affected by the Westerners than we acknowledge. Even our methods of thought have become curiously coloured by their mental processes. We begin now to distort our pure wisdom to fit their strange conventions.’
A murmur of protest ran round the council, but none dare give full voice to his indignation, for the old man was privileged.
‘Explain the full meaning,’ commanded the Prince.
‘It is well shown by an example, My Prince. See how these Westerners wage war. First they send a declaration to warn their enemies—is this not absurd? Then they use against that enemy a series of weapons similar to his own—which is plainly ridiculous. They have, in fact, rules for war—a conceit worthy only of children or imbeciles.
‘We, in our wisdom, know better. We know that wars should be won or lost; not childishly prolonged until both sides give up for very weakness and weariness. And yet’—he paused and looked around him—‘and yet we sit here lamenting our lack of weapons, lamenting that we cannot meet our oppressors on their own ground. It is a foolishness to consider the standards of the West in war.’
The Prince Khordah frowned. The tone of the other’s speech displeased him, but he was aware that some deeper thought had prompted it. He asked coldly: is it necessary here, Haramin, to lurk like an old fox in a thicket of words?’
‘I have a nephew, Prince, a man of great learning in the ways of the West, yet retaining the wisdom of his ancestors. He has a plan which should interest Your Highness.’
The Prince leaned forward. At last they seemed to be getting somewhere.
‘Where is this nephew, Haramin?’
‘I have brought him to await Your Highness’ summons.’
The Prince struck a silver gong beside him. To the entering servant he said:
‘The nephew of Haramin waits. Let him be brought before us.’
CHAPTER ONE
THE MYSTERIOUS GROWTHS
Ralph Waite’s father beamed genially across the dinner-table.
‘It’s good to have you home again, my boy,’ he said. ‘How long do you think you can manage?’
Ralph, a lusty, fair-haired young man, turned towards him. ‘Only the week-end, I’m afraid, Dad.’
Mrs. Waite looked up with a little wrinkle of concern and disappointment.
‘Is that all, dear? Don’t you think if you wrote nicely to them they might let you stay a little longer?’
Ralph checked a rising smile. ‘I don’t think it would be much good writing nicely to Amalgamated Chemicals, Mother,’ he said gravely.
‘I suppose you know best, dear, but-’
Mr. Waite broke in with some little excitement:
‘I’ve got something to show you after dinner, Ralph. Quite the most remarkable thing in all my gardening experience.’
His eyes were on his plate, so that he missed the look with which his wife favoured him.
‘But, dear,’ she began, ‘Ralph will want to-’
Ralph checked her with a glance. Of course he wanted to go and see Dorothy. His real desire was to rush off at this very moment, but he knew his father’s enthusiasm for his hobby. The old man would be sadly disappointed if he could not impress his son with his latest horticultural triumph. After all, Ralph reflected, the old boy got little enough pleasure, pushed away in this little Cornish town for the rest of his life.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
Mr. Waite chuckled. ‘You’ll see, my boy. All in good time; all in good time.’
The town of St. Brian lies not far from the south coast of Cornwall. A swift river, the Bod, flows through it on its way to join the English Channel at a point where it is almost the Atlantic Ocean. To the north one can see those strange, dazzling white cones which are the refuse of the clay pits, and from the higher points it is possible to trace the course of the Bod right down to the sea in the south.
The houses are mostly built of grey stone, their roofs clamped down upon them lest they should be whirled off by the gales which in winter sweep in from the Atlantic. In sheltered spots, where they are able to take advantage of kindly climate, flowers and plants thrive, as was excellently testified by Mr. Waite’s garden.
Dinner concluded, he led the way importantly across a stretch of smooth lawn to the thick hedge masking the far corner of his ground. As they reached a gap he paused, and with something of the manner of a showman, waved his son forward.
‘There, my boy,’ he said proudly. ‘Just take a look at that!’
Ralph, as he stepped forward to the hedge, was fully prepared to be impressed, but at the sight which met him, the nicely turned phrases he had thought up for the other’s gratification fled away. He stared speechlessly for a moment, then:
‘What on earth’s that?’ he demanded.
‘Ah, I thought it’d surprise you. Fine growth, what?’
‘But—what is the thing?’ persisted Ralph, gazing in horrified fascination.
‘Well,’ Mr. Waite admitted doubtfully, ‘I don’t think it’s been named yet—sort of experiment they got me to try out. A new form of marrow or something of the sort, I gather. Wait a minute, and I’ll get the letter..
He bustled across the lawn while his son turned to regard the ‘fine growth’ with renewed interest. Experiment or not, he decided that it was quite one of the most unwholesome looking plants he had ever seen. Roughly spherical, it reminded him mostly of a pumpkin with a diameter every bit of two feet.
But it was not so much the size which was responsible for his surprise as the colour. It lay before him, clammily glistening in the evening sunlight, a ball of blotchy, virulent yellow. The ground all
round it was bare, and it lay on one side attached to the earth only by a poor, twisted wisp of a stalk, as foolishly disproportionate as a pig’s tail.
‘Must be a good weight, a thing that size,’ he muttered to himself. With some distaste, he inserted his hand beneath it, and then stared at the thing in blank surprise. It weighed possibly a pound.
He was still staring at it when Mr. Waite returned with a paper fluttering in his hand.
‘Here you are. That, and the instructions for growing, are all I know about it.’
Ralph took the typewritten letter. It was headed ‘Slowitt & Co.,’ and underneath in smaller type was added: ‘Agents for Experimental Growers’ Company.’
Dear Sir [he read], In the course of our experimental work we have succeeded in evolving a new form of vegetable. We have the greatest hopes that this extremely prolific plant will successfully adapt itself to a great range of climatic conditions. In so far as we have been able to reproduce the various conditions in our laboratories, the results leave nothing to be desired, and we now feel that the time has come to put the plant to test in the actual climates it will have to face.
Our agents, in pursuance of our instructions to find persons likely to be interested in this development, forwarded us your name as that of a consistently successful exhibitor at a number of fruit and vegetable shows, and as one who takes an interest in the scientific side of horticulture. We have, therefore, great pleasure in asking you if you would consider assisting us in the introduction of this new form…
Ralph read far enough to enable him to grasp essentials. ‘This is all very well, Dad,’ he remarked. ‘But what on earth’s the good of the thing? It must be hollow; have you felt its weight?’
‘Oh, that’s all right. It says in the growing instructions, which they sent with the seeds, that one must not be surprised at the extraordinary lightness. I gather that when it is full-grown it begins to solidify or harden. Though it is a queer looking thing, I’ll admit, and so were the seeds.’
He fished in his pocket and found an object which he handed over.
‘I kept this one out of curiosity. You see, they’ve enclosed it—or, rather, several of them—in a kind of capsule. The instructions were emphatic that the capsule must not be opened in any circumstances.’
‘Then how-?’
‘You just bury the whole thing and water it very plentifully;
I suppose that dissolves the capsule and lets the thing begin to grow. It certainly shows a fine turn of speed. You’d never guess how long it is since I planted this chap.’ He stirred the yellow ball with his toe.
Ralph did not attempt the guess. ‘How long?’ he inquired.
‘Three days,’ said his father with pride. ‘Only three days to reach that size! Of course, I’m not sure how long it will be before it’s any use, but it’s started very well, and-’
But Mr. Waite’s intended lecture was frustrated. His wife’s voice tactfully summoned him to the house.
‘Don’t tell anyone about this, yet, my boy. I promised to keep it quiet till the thing should be full-grown,’ he said as he hurried across the lawn.
Ralph thankfully departed on his intended visit. Later, he was unable to remember whether it was curiosity or absence of mind which caused the one remaining seed capsule to find its way into his pocket; he only knew that it was lucky he had kept it.
Dorothy Forbes had expected Ralph earlier. She had even employed sundry of her waiting moments in inventing such reproaches as might be becoming in a lady slightly neglected. It was a pleasant mental exercise, but little more; Ralph’s method of greeting did not allow of the interview being placed on a dignified basis.
Instead of venting displeasure, she smoothed her frock, shook back her fair hair, wondered for a moment why one should blush quite so warmly, and suggested that there was a swing seat in the garden.
The swing seat was such a success that it was quite half an hour before an object on the other side of the garden caught Ralph’s eye and caused him to sit up, staring. Just visible over the top of a cucumber frame was a curved section of a familiar yellow surface.
‘Good Lord! ’ he said.
‘What?’ asked Dorothy. Following his line of sight, she added: ‘Oh, that’s one of Daddy’s secrets—you’re not supposed to see it.’
‘Well, now I have seen it, what about a closer view?’
‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter, but don’t tell him you’ve seen it.’
A few seconds sufficed to settle any lingering doubt. The plant behind the frame was identical with that in his father’s garden, though possibly a few inches smaller.
‘That’s queer, Ralph murmured.
Dorothy nodded, though she misapplied the remark.
‘I think it’s horrid. I told Daddy I’m sure it’s unhealthy, but he only laughed at me. Somehow I hate the thing. There’s such a nasty, poisonous look about that yellow.’
‘He’s keeping it secret?’
‘Yes; he’s very jealous about it. He says it will make him famous one day.’
Ralph nodded. This made it queerer still. He considered for a moment. Two people, each thinking himself unique, were growing this most unprepossessing vegetable.
‘What about a little walk?’ he suggested. Dorothy, with slight surprise at the sudden change of subject, assented.
It was a wandering stroll, apparently aimless. Nevertheless, it took them close to a number of back gardens. Altogether, they counted over twenty of the strange yellow balls.
CHAPTER TWO
THE RASH
When Ralph returned home to London, it was obvious that in a very short time there would be no more concealment of the strange growths. They were swelling to prodigious sizes with a swiftness which was rendering secrecy impossible. Already two peppery gentlemen who had considered themselves favoured experimenters had discovered one another’s rivalry and were indulging in wordy unpleasantness.
It could not be long before all twenty, and other yet undiscovered growers, would hear about it and join in the indignation. Dorothy’s next letter, therefore, did not astonish him when it announced that the cats were out of the bag and the gardeners of the town of St. Brian were in full cry for one another’s blood.
‘When our fathers discovered that they were rivals,’ she wrote, ‘it was bad enough. But now there are more than a score of them tearing their hair and threatening legal proceedings. It isn’t only in St. Brian, either. We’ve heard reports that hundreds of gardeners both in Cornwall and west Devon are growing the things.
‘Ours is so big, too. It’s over four feet in diameter now, and looks more evil than ever. I’m beginning to feel a bit afraid of it; I know that sounds silly, but it’s the truth. I told Daddy the other day that there was something wicked about it and that I was sure it was never meant to grow in England, but he only laughed and said neither were potatoes. All the same, I think the balls are beastly things. I hear that some boys cut the stalk of one near Newquay and rolled it down the cliffs so that it burst. I’d like to do the same with ours, only I hate the idea of touching the thing—ugh! ’
The earlier part of the letter caused Ralph some quiet smiles. He knew very well the temperament of the amateur gardener, with all its jealousies and enthusiasms, and the prospect of the warfare which must now be disturbing the community could give the unprejudiced onlooker no little amusement. But he grew more serious as he recalled the sickening appearance of those growths when they were only two feet in diameter; already they had swelled to four….
Unreasoning as Dorothy’s dislike of them might be, he found himself able to understand it and to sympathise with it. He was worried by the feeling, for he preferred reason to prejudice.
Nevertheless the matter was gradually slipping into the back of his mind until it was recalled a few days later by a paragraph tucked away at the foot of a newspaper column:
‘Several cases are reported from Newquay, the well-known Cornish holiday resort, of an outbreak of rash which
is puzzling the local doctors. It is thought that the condition may be consequent upon prolonged or injudicious exposure of the skin while sunbathing.’
For a moment he was puzzled to know when he had lately thought of Newquay; then he remembered that it was near there that the yellow ball had been pushed over the cliffs.
Dorothy’s next letter informed him that a state of excitement was prevailing all over the West Country. The inhabitants, it appeared, had split into two schools of thought on the subject of the yellow balls.
The growers and their friends were noisily upholding their rights to grow what they liked on their own land, while the opposition, without apparent grounds for the statement, proclaimed that the things were unhealthy. They shared, Dorothy surmised, her revulsion against them. Some days before a minor riot of protest had taken place in Bodmin. In the course of it, three balls had been slashed open.
After he had finished the letter, Ralph turned to his newspaper and found information which brought wrinkles of speculation to his forehead.
The cases of rash at Newquay had become serious. One of the victims had died, and the others were in a precarious condition. It was, according to the correspondent, impossible to state definitely that the rash was the cause of death, but he evidently had more than suspicions.
Then followed the information that the same mysterious rash had made its appearance at Bodmin, coupled with an assurance that it could not, in the later cases, be in any way attributed to sunbathing.
Thoughtfully, Ralph withdrew his father’s seed capsule from his pocket and regarded it.
‘I may be a fool. It’s probably just a coincidence, but it’s worth investigating,’ he told himself.
Before he sought his own office, he called in at the laboratory of a friend who worked in the bio-chemical department of Amalgamated Chemicals, Ltd.