Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions

by Brian Stableford

  VI. In which the engineer takes his revenge and puts Remplume in disgrace.

  Vatenlair did not sleep all night. As soon as first light he went to the factory to take account of what might have happened. As in the palace, he found everything in order; there was no lack of charcoal, the fires had not gone out and the apparatus was intact. He had thought of leaks, of pipes blocked or intentionally cut, but that would have led to explosions, and there had not been any. It was necessary to look in another direction, and at was where he should have begun. He summoned the chief of the factory and interrogated him.

  “At what time did you cut off the gas supply to the palace?”

  “At midnight.”

  “Who gave you that order?”

  “A servant from the palace, who came on behalf of the king.”

  “Very well. But the king only gives orders in writing or through the intermediary of a senior responsible functionary. You should only follow my instructions. Don’t forget that in future.”

  Evidently, as he had suspected, the previous night’s incident had been due to malevolence; it was the work of an enemy, but who was that enemy? He immediately thought of Remplume, whose hostility was visible, but he needed to be sure.

  He returned to the palace, very preoccupied.

  When he went into the room where he gave his lessons to the princess she was already there, and waiting for him impatiently

  “Well,” he said, “as I thought, I’m the victim of the operations of an unknown enemy. What happened last night resulted from an order given to my workmen without my knowledge; now it’s a matter of discovering the guilty party.”

  “Distrust Remplume,” said the princess.

  “It’s doubtless him,” said Vatenlair, “who had the order given in the king’s name, but he carefully refrained from giving it himself. How can I accuse him if I have no proof? Who is the servant he employed? If I interrogate them all, they’ll deny it.”

  “That’s true,” said the princess, “but there’s a means of discovering the truth. I’m your pupil, my dear professor; you’ve already taught me many things and you’ll teach me many more; in my turn, I’ll give you some advice. In bring all the marvels of science to this country, you’ve attributed all the merit thereto, as is only just; you’ve effaced yourself before it, and that’s a mistake. We’re too naïve and too ignorant here to understand and appreciate you as you deserve. Here, everything that is out of the ordinary belongs to the domain of the supernatural. At first you were thought to be an enchanter, and you rejected that appellation; then, in the eyes of everyone, you’re only a man like any other, subject to error, impotent and, in the present case, you’ll be taken for an impostor. It’s necessary to avoid that. Don’t hesitate any longer to satisfy the taste that people have for the marvelous; be audacious and tell my father loudly that you’re an enchanter, sent to him by the superior powers to protect him and render him illustrious. Tell him that your mission is secret, and that’s why you wanted to keep your incognito, that you know that you’re the target of malevolence but that you let it take its course in order to confound your enemy and thus demonstrate your power. Above all, don’t talk science; here, people don’t understand it and don’t believe in it.”

  “Yes, you’re right, Princess, but all my science won’t give me the means to confound Remplume.”

  “Think! Cunning will suffice. As for me, I’ll go to interrogate all the palace servants adroitly, and I’ll find out who took the order to the factory.”

  During that conversation, another was taking place in the king’s cabinet.

  Remplume said to him: “I told you so, Sire; that stranger has come to bring trouble into your kingdom with all his inventions, which signify nothing and are in any case incomplete.”

  “But you can’t deny that the gas burned, at least until midnight.”

  “That’s true; but the invention is impracticable, since it was extinguished at the moment when there was the greatest need for it. No, the scholar isn’t a scholar; he isn’t even an enchanter, as you seem to believe, for he would then have been able to repair the misadventure immediately—which I foresaw, for I had the lamps prepared in case of need. I tell you, Sire, this engineer, as he calls himself, is simply ingenious and all that he has found in a means to procure gas in order to reinflate his machine and depart as soon as possible. In your place I’d engage him to do so, and we’ll be rid of him.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said the king, who almost always followed the last advice he was given. “I’ll summon him and tell him to go away. Leave it to me.”

  Remplume went out, smiling, believing that this time, he had reckoned with the foreigner.

  In his turn, Vatenlair went into the king’s cabinet. He was still wearing his costume of the evening before, which gave him a fantastic appearance. He advanced proudly, and before the king was able to interrogate him, he said to him: “Before answering the questions that you’re going to put to me, Sire, it’s necessary that I reveal who I really am before I had the intention of doing so. As you have divined, I’m an enchanter, and if my experiment yesterday did not succeed completely, it’s because I wanted it to fail, in order to have a pretext to show you the enemies who surround your throne.”

  “I don’t know whether I have enemies,” said the king, “But in any case, I doubt very much that you’re an enchanter, because, strange as yesterday’s illumination seemed to me, it’s truly too incomplete to emanate from a superior power.”

  “Well, Sire, since you deny my power, I’ll give you a further proof by telling you what my goal is in coming here.”

  “I wouldn’t be sorry to know that, in fact.”

  “You are a great king; you render your people happy. One cannot say as much about all kings. You are, furthermore, one of the last believers in supernatural beings: fays, genii, giants, monsters, and I would even add enchanters if you hadn’t cast doubt on my power just now. But that doubt won’t last long. I have been charged by the king of the genii, to come to you in order to recompense you in a striking fashion for your faith in him. My mission is to prepare your daughter, Princess Betinette, to become a fay. The lessons I am giving her are gradually developing that faculty in her. Soon, knowing everything, she will be able to foresee everything and forestall everything. She will see the invisible and know the future. For the moment, she is only initiated in the knowledge of the past and the present.”

  “If what you’re telling me is true,” said the king, “I’ll ask her right away what the cause of last night’s event was. I’ll send for her.”

  “There’s no need, Sire; at this moment she is leaving her apartment and heading toward you.”

  As he spoke, Vatenlair extended his arm in the direction of the door, which immediately opened, and allowed Princess Betinette to enter.

  She was walking in an automatic fashion, her eyes wide open and staring.

  “Interrogate her,” said Vatenlair.

  The king, visibly troubled, asked the question: “Why did the gas go out by itself last night at midnight?”

  “Because you gave the order.”

  “Me!” cried the king. “I didn’t give any order.”

  “Send for the director of the factory,” said Vatenlair. “You’ll see that she’s telling the truth.”

  “It is a palace servant,” the princess continued, “who gave a verbal order on your behalf, but it was your astrologer who told him to act thus.”

  “Remplume? I’ll interrogate him.”

  “He’ll deny it,” said Vatenlair.

  “No!” said the princess. “You have only to say to him that Briquet has confessed everything.”

  “Briquet! The palfreyman?”

  “The same.”

  “Oh! Well, if that’s true, I’ll give myself the pleasure of confounding him before you.”

  And the king had Remplume come back.

  On seeing the princess and Vatenlair beside the king, Remplume grimaced. Had his ruse been d
iscovered? It’s impossible, he thought. He had not taken anyone into his confidence except Briquet, who believed that he was carrying an order from the king, and Briquet had promised to keep quiet.

  “Well,” said the king, who now had confidence in Vatenlair again, “it seems, my poor Remplume, that you’re very zealous.”

  “I cannot do too much for Your Majesty.”

  “Perhaps you’re wrong. Zeal isn’t devotion. What gave you the idea that I wanted the gas extinguished at midnight?”

  “But I didn’t have that idea, Sire!”

  “Really! Then what has Briquet told me?”

  At that name, Remplume believed himself doomed. He threw himself at the king’s knees, admitted everything, begged for mercy, and was as pitiful as sight as possible.

  “Get up,” said the king. “I’m dismissing you. You’ve deceived your master. I shall give you an exemplary punishment, but no rigor will equal the extent of your treason. Get out!”

  The astrologer, bent double, withdrew.

  “Now that justice is rendered,” said Vatenlair, “it’s necessary, Sire, to promise me silence with regard to the confidence that I’ve made you. No one must know that I’m an enchanter and that your daughter is going to be a fay, for the progress that I am bringing to your kingdom ought, in the eyes of everyone, to originate from your great intelligence. In a monarchy, everything belongs to the king. In a little while, you’ll see many other marvels; they will be attributed to you. It’s necessary that your reign will be illustrious, and that your people, already happy thanks to you, will also be proud to have you for their king.”

  At that moment, Vatenlair, darting a glance at Princess Betinette, liberated her from the suggestion under the influence of which she was acting, and the king, moved, covered her with kisses and tears.

  Vatenlair no longer had any fear of his enemies.

  VII. In which Princess Betinette makes fun of

  Prince Omega and King Beta occupies himself

  with horticulture.

  A few days later, the court was transported to the summer palace, which was situated in the middle of woods two leagues from the capital. Vatenlair, who had undertaken new works in his factory, asked the king for permission to remain in the winter palace in order to supervise them. He had, in fact, installed workshops of electricity and mechanics, in which new instruments would be manufactured, previously unknown in the country.

  Princess Betinette was very annoyed by Vatenlair’s resolution, and did not hide the fact.

  “How do you think,” she said to him, “that I can fulfill the role of fay that you have attributed to me, if you’re not there? I know my father; he’ll want to test my power, and I’ll be incapable of satisfying him.”

  “It’s the same for me, Princess; if I neglect the preparation of new surprises, the king will no longer believe in my power. But I won’t leave you disarmed. This is a little apparatus that I brought with me in the balloon, and has the purpose of reproducing objects that are placed in front of it, in as great a quantity as one desires. I’ll teach you to make use of it, and your prestige will remain intact with regard to your father. Within a week you’ll be able to use it as well as I can.”

  “Your presence is more agreeable to me,” said the princess.

  “And to me. Believe me, princess, I’ll suffer from your absence, all the more so because Prince Omega will be assiduous in your presence.”

  “Don’t take umbrage! That ridiculous fop ought not to render you jealous. I’ve already told my father that I don’t want to marry him, and that, in consequence, he shouldn’t have authorized him to make his request, but my father is weak; he doesn’t want to quarrel with his nephew and he daren’t upset me. He’ll temporize.”

  “Let’s do the same, and all will end well. In any case, every week I’ll come to spend a day at the summer palace and you can bring me up to date with what is happening there.”

  Life in the summer palace was rather monotonous. Queen Betasse, who was still ill, did not want to see anyone, and King Beta, who had a passion for flowers, spent all day in his gardens, grafting, producing buds and scolding his gardeners, whom he accused of doing nothing to his liking. Princess Betinette thus found herself in the company of Prince Omega, who paid very assiduous court to her and stunned her with his insipid chatter. He was, moreover, an utter blockhead; apart from horses and dogs, he knew nothing; he never read anything and hardly thought. Every morning he mounted his horses and asked the princess to do him the favor of accompanying him, but she always refused, under the pretext of continuing her studies. He therefore set forth alone, and did not come back again until the time of the midday meal. The princess immediately felt relieved of a presence that harassed her. She went out in her turn, on foot and, equipped with her apparatus, she went to capture the picturesque sites in the locale, taking care not to be followed in her artistic excursions.

  After the meal, the queen went to take her habitual siesta, the king returned to his flowers and she went into the drawing room to run her fingers over her piano, for she was a good musician. Prince Omega followed her then, and, his monocle always in his eye, fell into admiration at every piece she played.

  “What a talent you have, Princess. No artiste can compete with you!”

  Those compliments, spoken in a pretentious fashion, wearied her, and she often put an end to them by closing the instrument and taking refuge in her room.

  One day, however, she replied: “What about you, Prince? Since you can’t play music, have you at least some pleasing talent?”

  “I believe I ride a horse rather well,” said the prince.

  “That’s not a talent.”

  “Well, Princess, in my youth I learned to draw, and even had a certain aptitude for it. I think that, if I went back to it, I could produce a water-color quite neatly.”

  “Really” said the princess. “If you wanted to be agreeable to me you’d make me one that I’d have pleasure in keeping. My father’s château is rather picturesque; I’d be glad to have an image of it.”

  “Oh, Princess, you see me desolate at being unable to satisfy you, but I only do faces.”

  “Well, I consent to be your model. When is the first sitting?”

  “Tomorrow, if you wish, Princess, after lunch.”

  “So be it. Tomorrow!”

  To tell the truth, Prince Omega did not know a great deal about drawing; the ones he had made during his studies had always been retouched by his masters, but his vanity had enabled him to believe that they were entirely his. He thus found himself caught in a trap and forced to put on a brave face.

  The princess had also fallen into the trap she had set; now she no long had a pretext for getting rid of her importunate suitor. She regretted her improvidence.

  When the king learned that Prince Omega was going to paint a portrait of his daughter, he was delighted, and wanted her to pose costumed as a fay, in a white dress with a wand in her hand and a crown of stars on her head.

  The sittings commenced. Straight away, the Princess perceived that the Prince was a complete novice in the art of drawing and that he would never succeed in reproducing her face; she rejoiced in that, for his failure would be one more weapon against him; King Beta would certainly not pardon him for his lack of success.

  After ten sittings the prince had not yet sketched the face, and the king, who came from time to time to see how the portrait was coming along, was beginning to show signs of discontentment.

  It was at that moment that Vatenlair, who had not come the previous week, made his first visit to the summer palace. The princess immediately brought him up to date with the situation.

  “Well,” said Vatenlair, “that’s working our marvelously. Have a little more patience; Prince Omega will continue his daubing and your father will weary of it. Then it will be easy for you to cease your sittings and you’ll be liberated from your suitor, who will be convicted of conceit and ineptitude. You can then make use of your apparatus to show your
father that, without having been taught, you can be more skillful than the prince, and the king will be amazed, and attribute to your magic power an experiment that is purely in the domain of science. Next week, I’ll come back to see what has happened. In the meantime, I’ve been working hard and I’m preparing, in particular, a curious application of photography that will be further proof of my magical power in everyone’s eyes.”

  Prince Omega, invited by the king not to occupy himself with the portrait any longer, had been horribly vexed. He had resumed his early morning rides, momentarily interrupted, and continued them even after lunch, for he dared not find himself alone with the princess after the artistic check that he had suffered.

  But those excursions had another objective.

  When Remplume had been abruptly dismissed by the king, he had gone to relate his disgrace to Prince Omega, assuring him that it was unjust; that, but for Vatenlair, who decried him everywhere, the king would not have deprived himself thus of a devoted old servant; that his science was misunderstood; and that, finally, he had read in the stars that another prince, equally illustrious, would soon repair King Beta’s injustice. Prince Omega, who was no astrologer, thought that he understood that the illustrious prince of whom Remplume was talking was himself. That supposition also flattered his vanity. But, in attaching to his person a servant whom his uncle no longer wanted, would he not displease him? That objection was quickly resolved by Remplume, who consented to fulfill his functions in secret during the prince’s sojourn at King Beta’s court. It was therefore agreed between them that Remplume would go every day to a designated spot, and that the prince would come to consult him there.

  We have said that the princess spent her mornings taking pictures in the environs of the summer palace. One day, therefore, as she was about to aim her objective lens at a picturesque group of rocks, she perceived the prince descending from his horse and Remplume, hidden until then behind a bush, approaching him.

  The motif appeared to her to be worth capturing; that was done in an instant, and neither of the two persons perceived her presence. Afterwards, she went back to the palace.