The Second Deluge Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  SELECTING THE FLOWER OF MANKIND

  After a day or two, during which the ark was left open for inspection,and was visited by many thousands, Cosmo Versal announced that no morevisitors would be admitted. He placed sentinels at all entrances, andbegan the construction of a shallow ditch, entirely inclosing thegrounds. Public curiosity was intensely excited by this singularproceeding, especially when it became known that the workmen werestringing copper wires the whole length of the ditch.

  "What the deuce is he up to now?" was the question on everybody's lips.

  But Cosmo and his employees gave evasive replies to all inquiries. Agreat change had come about in Cosmo's treatment of the public. No onewas any longer encouraged to watch the operations.

  When the wires were all placed and the ditch was finished, it wascovered up so that it made a broad flat-topped wall, encircling thefield.

  Speculation was rife for several days concerning the purpose of themysterious ditch and its wires, but no universally satisfactoryexplanation was found.

  One enterprising reporter worked out an elaborate scheme, which heascribed to Cosmo Versal, according to which the wired ditch was toserve as a cumulator of electricity, which would, at the proper moment,launch the ark upon the waters, thus avoiding all danger of a fataldetention in case the flood should rise too rapidly.

  This seemed so absurd on its face that it went far to quiet apprehensionby reawakening doubts of Cosmo's sanity--the more especially since hemade no attempt to contradict the assertion that the scheme was his.

  Nobody guessed what his real intention was; if people had guessed, itmight have been bad for their peace of mind.

  The next move of Cosmo Versal was taken without any knowledge orsuspicion on the part of the public. He had now established himself inhis apartments in the ark, and was never seen in the city.

  One evening, when all was quiet about the ark, night work being nowunnecessary, Cosmo and Joseph Smith sat facing one another at a squaretable lighted by a shaded lamp. Smith had a pile of writing paper beforehim, and was evidently prepared to take copious notes.

  Cosmo's great brow was contracted with thought, and he leaned his cheekupon his hand. It was clear that his meditations were troublesome. Forat least ten minutes he did not open his lips, and Smith watched himanxiously. At last he said, speaking slowly:

  "Joseph, this is the most trying problem that I have had to solve. Thesuccess of all my work depends upon my not making a mistake now.

  "The burden of responsibility that rests on my shoulders is such as nomortal has ever borne. It is too great for human capacity--and yet howcan I cast it off?

  "I am to decide who shall be saved! _I_, _I_ alone, _I_,Cosmo Versal, hold in my hands the fate of a race numbering two thousandmillion souls!--the fate of a planet which, without my intervention,would become simply a vast tomb. It is for _me_ to say whether the_genus homo_ shall be perpetuated, and in what form it shall beperpetuated. Joseph, this is terrible! These are the functions of deity,not of man."

  Joseph Smith seemed no longer to breathe, so intense was his attention.His eyes glowed under the dark brows, and his pencil trembled in hisfingers. After a slight pause Cosmo Versal went on:

  "If I felt any doubt that Providence had foreordained me to do thiswork, and given me extraordinary faculties, and extraordinary knowledge,to enable me to perform it, I would, this instant, blow out my brains."

  Again he was silent, the secretary, after fidgeting about, bending andunbending his brows, and tapping nervously upon the table, at last saidsolemnly:

  "Cosmo, you _are_ ordained; you must _do the work._"

  "I must," returned Cosmo Versal, "I know that; and yet the sense of myresponsibility sometimes covers me with a cloud of despair. The otherday, when the ark was crowded with curiosity seekers, the thought thatnot one of all those tens of thousands could escape, and that hundredsof millions of others must also be lost, overwhelmed me. Then I began toreproach myself for not having been a more effective agent in warning myfellows of their peril. Joseph, I have miserably failed. I ought to haveproduced universal conviction that I was right, and I have not done it."

  "It is not your fault, Cosmo," said Joseph Smith, reaching out his longarm to touch his leader's hand. "It is an unbelieving generation. Theyhave rejected even the signs in the heavens. The voice of an archangelwould not have convinced them."

  "It is true," replied Cosmo. "And the truth is the more bitter to mebecause I spoke in the name of science, and the very men who representscience have been my most determined opponents, blinding the people'seyes--after willfully shutting their own."

  "You say you have been weak," interposed Smith, "which you have notbeen; but you would be weak if you now shrank from your plain duty."

  "True!" cried Cosmo, in a changed voice. "Let us then proceed. I had alesson the other day. Amos Blank came to me, puffed with his pillagedmillions. I saw then what I had to do. I told him plainly that he wasnot among the chosen. Hand me that book over there."

  The secretary pushed a large volume within Cosmo's reach. He opened it.It was a "Year-Book of Science, Politics, Sociology, History, andGovernment."

  Cosmo ran over its pages, stopping to read a few lines here and there,seeming to make mental notes. After a while he pushed the book aside,looked at his companion thoughtfully, and began:

  "The trouble with the world is that morally and physically it has forthousands of years grown more and more corrupt. The flower ofcivilization, about which people boast so much, nods over the stagnantwaters of a moral swamp and draws its perilous beauty from the poisonsof the miasma.

  "The nebula, in drowning the earth, brings opportunity for a new birthof mankind. You will remember, Joseph, that the same conditions are saidto have prevailed in the time of Noah. There was no science then, and wedo not know exactly on what principles the choice was made of those whoshould escape; but the simple history of Noah shows that he and hisfriends represented the best manhood of that early age.

  "But the seeds of corruption were not eliminated, and the same problemrecurs to-day.

  "I have to determine whom I will save. I attack the question byinquiring who represent the best elements of humanity? Let us firstconsider men by classes."

  "And why not by races?" asked Smith.

  "I shall not look to see whether a man is black, white, or yellow;whether his skull is brachycephalic or dolichocephalic," replied Cosmo."I shall look inside. No race has ever shown itself permanently thebest."

  "Then by classes you mean occupations?"

  "Well, yes, for the occupation shows the tendency, the quintessence ofcharacter. Some men are born rulers and leaders; others are bornfollowers. Both are necessary, and I must have both kinds."

  "You will begin perhaps with the kings, the presidents?"

  "Not at all. I shall begin with the men of science. They are the trueleaders."

  "But they have betrayed you--they have shut their eyes and blindfoldedothers," objected Joseph Smith, as if in extenuation.

  "You do not understand me," said Cosmo, with a commiserating smile. "Ifmy scientific brethren have not seen as clearly as I have done, thefault lies not in science, but in lack of comprehension. Nevertheless,they are on the right track; they have the gist of the matter in them;they are trained in the right method. If I should leave them out, theregenerated world would start a thousand years behind time. Besides,many of them are not so blind; some of them have got a glimpse of thetruth."

  "Not such men as Pludder," said Smith.

  "All the same, I am going to save Pludder," said Cosmo Versal.

  Joseph Smith fairly jumped with astonishment.

  "You--are--going--to--save--Pludder," he faltered. "But he is the worstof all."

  "Not from my present view-point. Pludder has a good brain; he can handlethe tools; he is intellectually honest; he has done great things forscience in the past. And, besides, I do not conceal from you the factthat I should like to see him convicted o
ut of his own mouth."

  "But," persisted Smith, "I have heard you say that he was--"

  "No matter what you have heard me say," interrupted Cosmo impatiently."I say now that he shall go with us. Put down his name at the head ofthe list."

  Dumfounded and muttering under his breath, Smith obeyed.

  "I can take exactly one thousand individuals, exclusive of the crew,"continued Versal, paying no attention to his confidant's repeatedshaking of his head. "Good Heavens, think of that! One thousand out oftwo thousand millions! But so be it. Nobody would listen to me, and nowit is too late. I must fix the number for each class."

  "There is one thing--one curious question--that occurs to me," put inSmith hesitatingly. "What about families?"

  "There you've hit it," cried Cosmo. "That's exactly what bothers me.There must be as many women as men--that goes without saying. Then, too,the strongest moral element is in the women, although they don't weighheavily for science. But the aged people and the children--there's thedifficulty. If I invite a man who possesses unquestionablequalifications, but has a large family, what am I to do? I can't crowdout others as desirable as he for the sake of carrying all of hisstirpes. The principles of eugenics demand a wide field of selection."

  Cosmo Versal covered his eyes, rested his big head on his hands, and hiselbows on the table. Presently he looked up with an air of decision.

  "I see what I must do," he said. "I can take only four persons belongingto any one family. Two of them may be children--a man, his wife, and twochildren--no more."

  "But that will be very hard lines for them--" began Joseph Smith.

  "Hard lines!" Cosmo broke in. "Do you think it is easy lines for me?Good Heavens, man! I am forced to this decision. It rends my heart tothink of it, but I can't avoid the responsibility."

  Smith dropped his eyes, and Cosmo resumed his reflections. In a littlewhile he spoke again:

  "Another thing that I must fix is an age limit. But that will have to besubject to certain exceptions. Very aged persons in general will notdo--they could not survive the long voyage, and only in the rareinstances where their experience of life might be valuable would theyserve any good purpose in reestablishing the race. Children areindispensable--but they must not be too young--infants in arms would notdo at all. Oh, this is sorry work! But I must harden my heart."

  Joseph Smith looked at his chief, and felt a twinge of sympathy,tempered by admiration, for he saw clearly the terrible contest in hisfriend's mind and appreciated the heroic nature of the decision to whichthe inexorable logic of facts had driven it.

  Cosmo Versal was again silent for a long time. Finally he appeared tothrow off the incubus, and, with a return of his ordinary decisiveness,exclaimed:

  "Enough. I have settled the general principle. Now to the choice."

  Then, closing his eyes, as if to assist his memory, he ran over a listof names well known in the world of science, and Smith set them down ina long row under the name of "Abiel Pludder," with which he had begun.

  At last Cosmo Versal ceased his dictation.

  "There," he said, "that is the end of that category. I may add to orsubtract from it later. According to probability, making allowance forbachelors, each name will represent three persons; there areseventy-five names, which means two hundred and twenty-five placesreserved for science. I will now make a series of other categories andassign the number of places for each."

  He seized a sheet of paper and fell to work, while Smith looked on,drumming with his fingers and contorting his huge black eyebrows. Forhalf an hour complete silence reigned, broken only by the gliding soundof Cosmo Versal's pencil, occasionally emphasized by a soft thump. Atthe end of that time he threw down the pencil and held out the paper tohis companion.

  "Of course," he said, "this is not a complete list of human occupations.I have set down the principal ones as they occurred to me. There will betime to correct any oversight. Read it."

  Smith, by force of habit, read it aloud:

  No. of Probable No.Occupation Names of Places

  Science (already assigned) 75 225Rulers 15 45Statesmen 10 30Business magnates 10 30Philanthropists 5 15Artists 15 45Religious teachers 20 60School-teachers 20 60Doctors 30 90Lawyers 1 3Writers 6 18Editors 2 6Players 14 42Philosophers 1 3Musicians 12 36Speculative geniuses 3 9"Society" 0 0Agriculture and mechanics 90 270 ____ ____ Totals 329 987Special reservations 13 ____ Grand total, places 1000

  Several times while Joseph Smith was reading he raised his eyebrows, asif in surprise or mental protest, but made no remark.

  "Now," resumed Cosmo when the secretary had finished, "let us begin withthe rulers. I do not know them as intimately as I know the men ofscience, but I am sure I have given them places enough. Suppose you takethis book and call them over to me."

  Smith opened the "year-book," and began:

  "George Washington Samson, President of the United States."

  "He goes. He is not intellectually brilliant, but he has strong senseand good moral fiber. I'll save him if for no other reason than his vetoof the Antarctic Continent grab bill."

  "Shen Su, Son of Heaven, President-Emperor of China."

  "Put him down. I like him. He is a true Confucian."

  Joseph Smith read off several other names at which Cosmo shook his head.Then he came to:

  "Richard Edward, by the grace of God, King of Great--"

  "Enough," broke in Cosmo; "we all know him--the man who has done morefor peace by putting half the British navy out of commission than anyother ruler in history. I can't leave him out."

  "Achille Dumont, President of the French republic."

  "I'll take him."

  "William IV, German Emperor."

  "Admitted, for he has at last got the war microbe out of the familyblood."

  Then followed a number of rulers who were not lucky enough to meet withCosmo Versal's approval, and when Smith read:

  "Alexander V, Emperor of all the Russias," the big head was violentlyshaken, and its owner exclaimed:

  "There will be many Russians in the ark, for tyranny has been like alustration to that people; but I will carry none of its Romanoff seedsto my new world."

  The selection was continued until fifteen names had been obtained,including that of the new, dark-skinned President of Liberia, and Cosmodeclared that he would not add another one.

  Then came the ten statesmen who were chosen with utter disregard toracial and national lines.

  In selecting his ten business magnates, Cosmo stated his rule:

  "I exclude no man simply because he is a billionaire. I consider the wayhe made his money. The world must always have rich men. How could I havebuilt the ark if I had been poor?"

  "Philanthropists," read Smith.

  "I should have taken a hundred if I could have found them," said Cosmo."There are plenty of candidates, but these five [naming them] are theonly genuine ones, and I am doubtful about several of them. But I mustrun some chances, philanthropy being indispensable."

  For the fifteen representatives of art Cosmo confined his selectionlargely to architecture.

  "The building instinct must be preserved," he explained. "One of thefirst things we shall need after the flood recedes is a variety of allkinds of structures. But it's a pretty bad lot at the best. I shall tryto reform their ideas during the voyage. As
to the other artists, they,too, will need some hints that I can give them, and that they cantransmit to their children."

  Under the head of religious teachers, Cosmo remarked that he had triedto be fair to all forms of genuine faith that had a large following. Theschool-teachers represented the principal languages, and Cosmo selectedthe names from a volume on "The Educational Systems of the World,"remarking that he ran some risk here, but it could not easily beavoided.

  "Doctors--they get a rather liberal allowance, don't they?" asked Smith.

  "Not half as large as I'd like to have it," was the response. "Thedoctors are the salt of the earth. It breaks my heart to have to leaveout so many whose worth I know."

  "And only one lawyer!" pursued Joseph. "That's curious."

  "Not in the least curious. Do you think I want to scatter broadcast theseeds of litigation in a regenerated world? Put down the name of ChiefJustice Good of the United States Supreme Court. He'll see that equityprevails."

  "And only six writers," continued Smith.

  "And that's probably too many," said Cosmo. "Set down under that headPeter Inkson, whom I will engage to record the last scenes on thedrowning earth; James Henry Blackwitt, who will tell the story of thevoyage; Jules Bourgeois, who can describe the personnel of thepassengers; Sergius Narishkoff, who will make a study of theirpsychology; and Nicolao Ludolfo, whose description of the ark will be aninvaluable historic document a thousand years hence."

  "But you have included no poets," remarked Smith.

  "Not necessary," responded Cosmo. "Every human being is a poet atbottom."

  "And no novelists," persisted the secretary.

  "They will spring up thicker than weeds before the waters are halfgone--at least, they would if I let one aboard the ark."

  "Editors--two?"

  "That's right. And two too many, perhaps. I'll take Jinks of the_Thunderer_, and Bullock of the _Owl._"

  "But both of them have persistently called you an idiot."

  "For that reason I want them. No world could get along without some realidiots."

  "I am rather surprised at the next entry, if you will permit me to speakof it," said Joseph Smith. "Here you have forty-two places reserved forplayers."

  "That means twenty-eight adults, and probably some youngsters who willbe able to take parts," returned Cosmo, rubbing his hands with asatisfied smile. "I have taken as many players as I conscientiouslycould, not only because of their future value, but because they will domore than anything else to keep up the spirits of everybody in the ark.I shall have a stage set in the largest saloon."

  Joseph Smith scowled, but held his peace. Then, glancing again at thepaper, he remarked that there was but one philosopher to be providedfor.

  "It is easy to name him," said Cosmo. "Kant Jacobi Leergeschwaetz."

  "Why he?"

  "Because he will harmlessly represent the metaphysical _genus_, fornobody will ever understand him."

  "Musicians twelve?"

  "Chosen for the same reason as the players," said Cosmo, rapidly writingdown twelve names because they were not easy to pronounce, and handingthem to Smith, who duly copied them off.

  When this was done Cosmo himself called out the nextcategory--"'speculative geniuses.'"

  "I mean by that," he continued, "not Wall Street speculators, butforeseeing men who possess the gift of looking into the 'seeds of time,'but who never get a hearing in their own day, and are hardly everremembered by the future ages which enjoy the fruits whose buds theyrecognized."

  Cosmo mentioned two names which Joseph Smith had never heard, and toldhim they ought to be written in golden ink.

  "They are _sui generis_, and alone in the world. They are the mostprecious cargo I shall have aboard," he added.

  Smith shrugged his shoulders and stared blankly at the paper, whileCosmo sank into a reverie. Finally the secretary said, smiling withevident approval this time:

  "'Society' zero."

  "Precisely, for what does 'society' represent except its own vanity?"

  "And then comes agriculture and mechanics."

  For this category Cosmo seemed to be quite as well prepared as for thatof science. He took from his pocket a list already made out and handedit to Joseph Smith. It contained forty names marked "cultivators,farmers, gardeners," and fifty "mechanics."

  "At the beginning of the twentieth century," he said, "I should have hadto reverse that proportion--in fact, my entire list would then have beentop-heavy, and I should have been forced to give half of all the placesto agriculture. But thanks to our scientific farming, the personnelemployed in cultivation is now reduced to a minimum while showingmaximum results. I have already stored the ark with seeds of the latestscientifically developed plants, and with all the needed agriculturalimplements and machinery."

  "There yet remain thirteen places 'specially reserved,'" said Smith,referring to the paper.

  "I shall fill those later," responded Cosmo, and then added with athoughtful look, "I have some humble friends."

  "The next thing," he continued, after a pause, "is to prepare theletters of invitation. But we have done enough for to-night. I will giveyou the form to-morrow."

  And all this while half the world had been peacefully sleeping, and theother half going about its business, more and more forgetful of recentevents, and if it had known what those two men were about it wouldprobably have exploded in a gust of laughter.