Getting Into The Corner

: Other World Life

The doctor's new official position carried with it the use of a

spacious, rambling dwelling, situated just inside the gate where we had

met Miss Blank. It was thus conveniently located for the doctor's duties

at the observatories on the plateau. Another house would have been

assigned to me, but I preferred to live with the doctor, and I desired

to keep my eye on those enormous stone structures which our telescope

had q ickly relegated to scientific uselessness.



We had established ourselves comfortably in this house, surrounded

ourselves with a modest retinue of servants, and were rapidly becoming

acquainted with Kemish life and manners. The doctor learned the language

laboriously from the deposed wise man, who had no means of communicating

with him except in the tongue he was teaching. Thus it happened that the

doctor could teach me in a few hours in the evening what it had taken

him all day to learn. Naturally I picked up the most common phrases used

in receiving and handling the grain, by hearing them frequently; but I

soon learned that I must pronounce them with exactly the same intonation

and emphasis, or they were not understood. Knowing but one language

themselves, they had no facility in recognising mispronounced words, or

in guessing at the meaning of incomplete phrases on which I stumbled.



The most difficult thing I encountered was their method of telling the

time. During the day it was reckoned rationally enough by the passage of

the Sun, which was never obscured by clouds and could always be seen.

Every house had a small hole in the roof, at a fixed distance from the

floor, and the daily track and varying shape of the spot of sunshine

thus admitted gave names to the periods of the day. There seemed to be a

settled superstition that no house was fortunate unless this spot of

sunshine entered by the door in the morning. For this reason the

principal door in nearly every house was built in the west, so that the

rising Sun would cast its spot first on the porch outside and then

gradually creep in through the door, across the floor, and up the

opposite wall late in the afternoon. Of course there were daylight

periods in the early morning and late afternoon when the Sun was too low

to cast a spot, and these were known by terms which are best translated

"before the clock" and "after the clock."



No one dared to make a social call while the Sun was still outside the

door, but friends were best welcome when the Sun was just entering it.

Moreover, whoever slept until the Sun had entered the door was looked

upon as an irredeemable sluggard. The track of the spot from the

door-sill to the wall opposite was measured by linear distance from the

centre or noon-position of the spot. As in different houses the

apertures through which the clock-light was admitted were always the

same distance from the floor, such expressions as "two feet before

noon," or "a foot and a quarter after noon" (which I translate from the

Kemish) always had a definite and exact meaning. The nearer the spot

drew to noon the more exactly circular it became and the more slowly it

moved. Therefore, very fine measurements were needed in the middle of

the day, and an inch near noon represented nearly as much time as a foot

in the morning or evening.



But the daylight methods were simplicity itself compared with the night

methods, which were calculated on an entirely different system, based on

the combined movements of the two moons, neither of which agreed or

coincided with the movement of the Sun in any close degree. I urged upon

the doctor, as one of his earliest duties, the necessity of reforming

their calendar and establishing a uniform method of denoting the time,

to extend throughout the day and night. But on this point he failed to

agree with me.



"What are our seconds, minutes, hours, and weeks after all?" he queried.

"They are only arbitrary and meaningless divisions of time, which we

have found necessary because we have a very meagre heavenly clockwork;

but here they have a very elaborate one. Our day is a rational period

based on the Sun's revolution. Here they have seen fit to give up the

Sun-day to simplify matters and stick to a Moon-day. Their two contrary

moons furnish a rational, if rather intricate, method of telling the

time at night. They are best understood by imagining them to represent

the two hands of a clock. The smaller moon is what may be called a 'week

hand,' completing its revolution in five and a half Sun-days; which they

have for convenience divided into six Moon-days of twenty-two hours

each. The larger moon makes two complete revolutions in a day, just as

the hour hand of a clock does; and it really makes but little difference

that it travels around the dial in an opposite direction to that of the

'week hand,' or that they both gain two hours a day on the Sun. These

are mere details, that one gets used to in the end."



"Doctor, you argue like the old farmer I used to know, who stuck to the

clock handed down by his grandfather, and maintained that no

new-fangled arrangement kept as good time. It was true that the

striking apparatus had long ago failed to agree with the hands; and the

hands themselves, owing to the accumulated inaccuracies of years, no

longer denoted the real time; nevertheless, whenever it struck seven he

could always be sure that the hands were pointing to a quarter-past

twelve, and it was then just twenty-two minutes to three. This was

something he could depend upon with a certainty which quite compensated

for the annoyance of incessant calculations and mental corrections."



"Pray leave joking aside and consider the wonderful nightly clockwork

here, which makes automatic time-keepers unnecessary. This accommodating

inner moon, within the brief space of five hours, goes through the

phases of a thin crescent, first quarter, and just as it approaches

fulness it submits to a total eclipse, followed by a waning quarter,

then the reverse crescent of an old moon, and finally it sets where the

Sun must soon rise. It is a wonderful heavenly clock, which is never

obscured by clouds, and turns its face toward every one alike."



"Yes, but one must remember that this hurrying moon gains two hours a

day on the Sun, and therefore goes through her performance that much

earlier each night. Besides, she is capable of rising twice in the same

night occasionally."



"Those are mere details that one learns to allow for. Moreover,

consider the convenience of being able to tell the day of the week by

the smaller moon. If it is just risen, we know we are on the eve of the

first day of the week; if it is high or eclipsed, it must be the second

day; and if it is sinking in the west, it is the third day----"



"But for the last half of the week it is not seen at all, and one is

free to guess which day it is," I interrupted. "Then no two days of the

week begin at the same hour. The first day begins with sunrise, the

second two hours before sunrise, the third four hours before, and the

fourth at midnight, and so on--two hours earlier each day till the week

ends, when they throw in a whole night for good measure and begin the

next week at sunrise again!"



"Yes, that arrangement is made necessary because their Moon-day will not

agree with their Sun-day in any other manner. But it is rather

remarkable that the two moons agree with each other so well, the larger

one making twelve revolutions while the smaller makes one, so that at

the end of every week they both rise together, but on opposite sides of

the horizon, which is the signal for that night to be disregarded in the

count. The next week begins on the following morning, the first rising

of the larger moon being disregarded, and her second rising being the

one reckoned from."



We were discussing this during our noon-day meal, and, when we had

finished, I walked with the doctor out to the plateau, where I was

supervising some important work on the Gnomons; for I had not been ten

days in Kem until I attempted to buy, with my gold coins, a large amount

of wheat from the Pharaoh. Through the interference and objection of

Zaphnath, however, I failed utterly in getting any. But the gold had its

effect just the same, and later the Pharaoh showed an evident

willingness to part with anything in his possession in order to get a

liberal number of the smaller coins. But I put a very high value upon

the gold, comparing closely with the worth of diamonds upon Earth, and

refused to part with any, until one day the wisdom of buying the Gnomons

occurred to me. I considered the project carefully, and finally made him

an offer of a hundred half-eagles for them. Many of the small ones had

been built to watch the course of the birth-stars of his various

ancestors, and these were now in a sense monuments to his dynasty. He

reserved these and a small one, built to observe his own star of

nativity, and finally sold me all the large important ones, upon the

doctor's representation that they were no longer needed for astronomical

purposes. He specified only that they must not be torn down, but that I

might use them as I should see fit.



As I have said before, the Gnomons contained numerous large, long

chambers, and it only became necessary to put a permanent bottom in

these to convert them into enormous warehouses. All the storage places

inside the city were rapidly filling with grain, which poured in at

every gate on tens of thousands of mules. The plenteous crop, already

ripening, would have to be housed somewhere, and even if I did not

succeed in buying a large store of grain for myself, I knew how to make

a storehouse eat up a large portion of the value of the grain it housed.

I had seen wheat, stored year after year, finally become the property of

the elevator owner, by virtue of his charges.



I was not only putting a bottom to the storage chambers, but converting

the inclined slopes of the largest Gnomons into a passable mule-trail,

by roughening and corrugating the surface to give the patient animals a

surer foot-hold, so they might climb to the top to discharge their

cargoes. This was a simple form of elevator, and I laughed to think what

some of my former acquaintances would think of it! One of the smaller

Gnomons had already been completed to receive my share of the grain

which I earned in the Pharaoh's service, and to this I was adding such

meagre purchases as I could make from the small farmers. These, however,

were not numerous, for the land was mostly in the hands of the Pharaoh

and of a few large owners, more or less bound to him. I was therefore

not a little surprised now upon approaching to see a long line of mules

picking their way up the inclined side of the finished Gnomon, and as

they reached the top their drivers emptied the pair of sacks they bore

into my storehouse. Including the drove of unladen animals at the bottom

of the Gnomon, there must have been a hundred in all, and I was awaited

by the chief driver, who rode one sleek mule covered with a soft blanket

of feather texture, and had another similarly saddled by his side. After

a slow salute of each hand upon his cheek, he said to me,--



"My master, the glorious Hotep, sendeth to the keeper of the Pharaoh's

grain a present of two hundred bags of wheat, and wisheth to know if it

be true that thou desirest to buy a large store of grain with gold? For

hath not Hotep the gathered harvests of two full years in his bins, and

upon his fertile lands the largest crop in all Kem (save only that of

the Pharaoh) is nodding and awaiting the warm, ripening breath of the

Snowless Month! Yet Hotep hath no use for iron money, for he is weighted

and fettered with it already; but if thou desirest to bargain with him

for as much yellow gold as thou hast bartered to the Pharaoh, he will be

most pleased to treat with thee, and sendeth me with this ambling mule

to fetch thee. Will it please thee to come with me now to his palace

within the city?"



"What do you think, Doctor? This Hotep must be almost a rival to the

Pharaoh, if he has stored so much grain and owns so many ripening

fields. He must have seen the new gold ornaments upon the Pharaoh's

women, which have rendered him envious. If, indeed, he has such a vast

quantity of grain to sell, I will deck him out with gold, such as will

turn the Pharaoh green with envy! I shall lose no time in seeing him;"

and so saying I mounted the mule, and assured the chief driver I would

express my thanks in person to the great Hotep.



He conducted me to the opposite side of the city, and, as we crossed a

height near its centre, he pointed out to me the long fields of his

master lining the left bank of the river. There were miles of waving

grain just beginning to turn from a luxuriant green to the lighter

yellow tints of harvest. Presently we approached a large palace, which I

had often before seen from afar against the distant wall of the city,

but had never known. Upon entering, I observed every sign of the same

idle luxury which marked the Pharaoh's dwelling, but none of that regal

disdain or imperial haughtiness which separated every one but his

favourite women from the immediate presence of the monarch.



I was graciously received in a large, lighted chamber, where Hotep

reclined lazily upon a billowy heap of downy cushions, surrounded by

many women. He only arose from his elbow to a sitting posture when I

saluted him. Without saying a word to him, I approached, and, loosening

my belt from about my waist, I unbuckled its mouth and poured out upon

a large cushion by his side my three hundred shining golden eagles. The

effect was electrical, for they were twice the size and three times as

many as the coins I had given the Pharaoh. It must have seemed

impossible to him that I could possess larger coins, and more of them,

than he had seen upon the monarch's favourites. He was simply delighted

with the mere view, and his women crowded around or ran out in haste to

bring in their absent sisters to behold a marvel of riches such as Kem

had never seen. But though they wondered and gloated over the sight,

none of them touched a coin until I spoke.



"I pray thee, most gracious Hotep, examine all these coins, and pass

them among thy women to see if they be pleased with them. Observe their

regularity of form and beauty of design, and test the music they give

forth when cast upon thy floor of stone. Mayhap, thou wouldst rather own

all these than to be cumbered with so much grain."



Thereupon Hotep seized a heaping handful, which he poured jingling from

one palm to the other, and all the women delved their pretty fingers

into the shining heap and passed the coins to their admiring sisters,

until not one was left upon the cushion.



"Thy Chief of Harvests hath made known to me, O Hotep, that thou still

hast the full crops of two years. Wilt thou tell me how many bags of

grain grow upon thy fields at a single crop?"



"Are not the number of my mules a thousand and one, and bear they not

two bags each? To gather a single harvest, each faithful animal must

make five trips each day for the period of an hundred days."



I had often estimated an average mule-load at five bushels, upon which

basis each crop would aggregate two and a half million bushels. This

seemed impossible for a single farmer, but his fields wearied the sight

to follow down the left bank of the Nasr-Nil.



"If thou wilt leave all this gold with me, I will deliver by my mules to

thy storehouses upon the plateau all the grain of my past two crops with

which my whole palace here is cumbered."



"I fear thou holdest thy grain too dearly, and that thou knowest not the

value of this gold. What is more plenteous in Kem than wheat? There be

more bags of it than the stars in heaven. But this gold I bring is more

than all the store of it upon Ptah before I came. Pray give it back

again," I said, gathering up the few pieces which had been returned to

the cushion, and glancing about among the women as if searching for the

rest. They returned them slowly, but Hotep still held his handful. After

a brief pause, I continued,--



"Hast thou not a fair crop growing which thou mightest also give me, so

that no other than Hotep shall receive any of these coins?"



"In truth, I have never ridden as far as my waving fields stretch down

the Nasr-Nil; but one cannot sell what hath not fully ripened, for who

knoweth what it may turn out to be?"



"Then I must beg thee to return my coins," I answered slowly; but,

unbuckling the other end of my belt, I poured out upon another cushion

the hundred magnificent double eagles which I was holding in reserve.

Then, taking a particularly bright one of these, I continued,--



"But as thou hast been generous and thoughtful enough to send me a

present, O Hotep, I desire to return one to thee, such as no man in Kem

ever possessed before. Will it please thee to accept this disc of gold

as large as the lesser moon that creeps across the sky? And with it go

my wishes that Hotep's crops may always be great and plentiful."



Slowly and unwillingly the women returned the eagles to the cushion,

while they stared in wonder at the heap of larger coins. Hotep filtered

the handful through his fingers to the cushion, and accepted the double

eagle with gladness. With his eyes fixed on the second heap he seemed to

be thinking deeply and making calculations.



"The people are wont to call thee Iron Man, but I believe thou art

golden!" he ruminated, and then suddenly, "For these heaps of riches,

large and small, what desirest thou of all my possessions? Wilt thou

have all my grain and half my land? Shall I give to thee all my fields

which cannot be seen from the palace here?"



"Why should I wish thy land when I have no cattle to till it, nor mules

to gather the harvest? In lieu of the land, give me only a share of what

it should produce for a few years. Now give heed to the bargain I will

make with thee. If thou wilt deliver to my storehouses, upon the

plateau, all the gathered grain of thy past two crops, and all the grain

thou shalt gather from this growing crop (save only what thou needest

for seed), and half of each of the crops of the three succeeding

years,--provided, however, that you assure me each year as much as thy

thousand mules can carry in an hundred journeys;--then thou mayest keep

all this store of gold, which is, indeed, all that both of us from the

Blue Star possess."



He seemed to be revolving these terms slowly in his mind to be sure of

them, and then called out to his servants,--



"Bring in spiced wine, and bid my Chief of Harvests enter! He shall be

witness that Hotep agrees to this compact, and, should I die before it

is fulfilled, he shall see that it is carried out to the last year. But

wilt thou leave all this gold with me now, or must I wait until the

harvests are delivered?"



"What Hotep promiseth me I believe, as certainly as if it were done

already. I will leave the gold with thee, knowing thou wilt perform the

contract in every item; but if thou failest in any year, thou shalt

return to me one small gold-piece for each trip that thy thousand mules

fall short of an hundred."



He agreed, and arose and recited the terms of the compact to his Chief

of Harvests, charging him to carry it out, and to cause to be engraved a

small stone cylinder as a permanent record of its provisions, as it was

their custom to do in such cases. Then filling three goblets with rich

spiced wine, he exclaimed,--



"For thy sake, O most generous youth, may the Nasr-Nil fondly nurse

every harvest, and may the gentle Snowless Month ripen them in such

abundance as they have never shown before! And may Hotep's mules grow

old and weary bearing the plenty to thy storehouses!"