The Last American | Page 9

with a violent rain. Yesterday we gasped with the hot air. To-day we are shivering in winter clothing.

2lst May

The same as yesterday. Most of us are ill. My teeth chatter and my body is both hot and cold. A storm more wicked never wailed about a ship. Lev-el-Hedyd calls it the shrieking voices of the hundred millions of Mehrikans who must have perished in similar weather.

16th June
It is many days since I have touched this journal. A hateful sickness has been upon me, destroying all energy and courage. A sort of fever, and yet my limbs were cold. I could not describe it if I would.
Nofuhl came into the cabin this evening with some of his metal plates and discoursed upon them. He has no respect for the intellects of the early Mehrikans. I thought for a moment I had caught him in a contradiction, but he was right as usual. It was thus:
Nofuhl. They were great readers.
Khan-li. You have told us they had no literature. Were they great readers of nothing?
Nofuhl. Verily, thou hast said it! Vast sheets of paper were published daily in which all crimes were recorded in detail. The more revolting the deed, the more minute the description. Horrors were their chief delight. Scandals were drunk in with thirstful eyes. These chronicles of crime and filth were issued by hundreds of thousands. There was hardly a family in the land but had one.
Khan-li. And did this take the place of literature?
Nofuhl. Even so.

20th June

Once more we are on the sea; two days from Nhu-Yok. Our decision was a sudden one. Nofuhl, in an evil moment, found among those accursed plates a map of the country, and thereupon was seized with an unreasoning desire to visit a town called "Washington." I wavered and at last consented, foolishly I believe, for the crew are loud for Persia. And this town is inland on a river. He says it was their finest city, the seat of Government, the capital of the country. Grip-til-lah swears he can find it if the map is truthful. Ja-khaz still eats by himself.
This afternoon we reclined upon the deck, the Zlotuhb drifting gently in a southerly direction. Land could be seen on the starboard bow, a faint strip along the western horizon.
It was about the middle of the afternoon, while passing the ruins of a gigantic tower--perhaps a lighthouse--that Nofuhl, of a sudden, clambered hastily to his feet and looked about him. Then he called to Grip-til-lah, asking how many leagues we were from the harbor of Nhu-Yok. Grip-til-lah's reply I forget, but it filled the old man with a gentle excitement. I observed an unwonted sparkle in his eyes, also a quivering of the fingers as he pointed to the ocean around about, and exclaimed--
"Beneath us, the bottom of the sea is covered with iron ships--the wrecks of stupendous navies--the mightiest of all human history!"
At once we all became interested.
"What navies?" I inquired. "And what compassed their destruction? Was it a battle?"
Nofuhl. A battle of whose magnitude no Persian has conception; a conflict in which the sea was tossed and the heavens rent by thunderings of iron monsters. Any one of them would have blown to atoms a fleet of Zlotuhbs.
Ad-el-pate. Verily! A tale easier told than believed. But I would readily venture my head in the Zlotuhb against any of these nursery-tale wonders.
Nofuhl. And with wisdom. For the loss of thy brain. Ad-el-pate, could not affect the nature of thy speech.
Whereupon there was laughter, and Ad-el-pate held his peace.
Khan-li. But tell us of this battle, O Nofuhl. I remember now to have read about it at college. These details of ancient history I am prone to forget. How came it about?
Nofuhl. I have spoken of the Mehrikans being a greedy race. And their greed, at last, resulted in this war. By means of one-sided laws of their own making they secured for themselves a lion's share of all profits from the world's commerce. This checked the prosperity of other nations, until at last the leading powers of Europe combined in self-defence against this all-absorbing greed. They collected an armada the like of which was never imagined, neither before nor since. Then, across the ocean, came the iron host. And here, upon this very spot where we are floating, they met the Mehrikan ships.
Khan-li. How many ships in all?
Nofuhl. The Mehrikans had eighty heavy ships of iron, with a number of smaller craft. The allies had two hundred and forty heavy battleships, all of iron. They also had smaller craft for divers purposes.
Khan-li. Allah! A bad prospect for our greedy friends! And being a nation of traders they had no liking, probably, for the perils of war.
Nofuhl. As to that historians differ. According to the Mehrikans themselves they were mighty warriors. But certain