68 LITERATURE. 



" I fear nothing," answered War, " bnt the displeasure of my father." 



" Liar ! " exclaimed Timu. " Liar ! How dost thou dare to tell me this? 



" I am not a liar ! Father, I hold thee in all veneration ! " 



" Liar ! " retorted Timu, and a thousand voices repeated " Liar ! Liar ! " 



" By all that is sacred to me; by the mother who carried me in her womb and gave 

 me her sweet milk — by God my father, the valiant Timu, whose voice was once heard to 

 the farthest corners of the deep — by them 1 declare that I have never lied." 



" Oh, sacrilegious son ! I would that thou hadst never been born ! That the milk of 

 Kari had never reared such a rebel ! I know not what prevents me from annihilating thee, 

 or delivering thee to my faithtful followers who would soon do justice to thine arrogance and 

 thy villainy." 



A wave of joy thrilled the assembly, and at a sign from Timu they would all, young and 

 old, have thrown themselves on War, who, terrible in his earnestness, was standing erect, 

 ready for the worst. 



" God Timu, by the oath which I have just proffered, I stand. Destroy me if thou canst. 

 Annihilate me if it be thy power. If thine omnipotence allows it, decree that I have never 

 been .... If thou canst not do these things, if it be impossible for thee to perform 

 them, then . . . ." and a minute of deep silence followed . . . . " Then 

 come and raise thine hand against thy son, degrade him, strike him, punish him to thme 

 heart's content, now, to-day, to-morrow, and for all eternity. Thy son. War, is ready to 

 submit to anything from his father, the author of his birth, the channel through which 

 his life ran, the centre from which he was thrown into being, and who must be revered by 

 all, without hesitation, murmur, or revolt, except when the eternal law of Justice, greater 

 and more sacred than all the Gods and all the universe is being outraged and one is madly 

 condemned to become an accomplice of an outrage. Oh ! my Father, do what pleases thee, 

 and may it calm and alleviate thy anger. Do it. I am thy son. I submit . . . But . . 

 if any of those shadowy semblances of beings, who do not deserve a name because they are 

 not, incomplete manifestation of what might be, existing only by flattery and on sufferance, 

 miserable organisms who have never felt the thrill of life, representing two powers which 

 united are irresistible but divided cease to exist, subdividing life into thinking and acting, 

 willing and performing, dieaming and realising, as separable functions, whereas they cannot 

 be set apart without destroying all harmony and creating despicable races whose sons are 

 still worse than their parents, and range under the two heads of tyrants and slaves, who, 

 owing to the turn of the wheel of life at times, change places, but always represent the 

 division of one force which must be <'«(■ in order to be at all .... If any, or all of them 

 dare to lay their degraded hands on me, I shall use against their contamination the right 

 of self-defence, and destroy even to the last of them." 



" Dost thou brave me? " roared Timu. 



" I am thy son, the son of a brave father, and I never will submit to any degradation. 

 I live, I am, I shall be, and in time I shall pass away and return into the bosom of eternal 

 life. Oh ! my father, let not thine old age be deceived; let not those traitorous followers 

 of thine take advantage of the youth of thy son and the age of his sire ; do not lend thine ear 

 to their calumny ; their conspiring is caused by their baseness, incited by envy, and embittered 

 by the fear that one day, and that not a far off one, they will all have to be swept into 

 nonentity." 



Timu furious, deaf and lilinti with rage, rushed on his son and struek him with all liis 

 might, but War did not move; blow followed blow, Imt ^till lie stood, erect, courageous, 

 sublime. 



Timu continued to strike until he fi'lt tlial lie must soon cease from sheer want of power. 

 He then gathered all his force, gave one last blow, and fell exhausted, whilst War, pale and 

 sorrowful, bent to help him. 



