Book the Second — The World Rejects Sargon, King of Kings
Chapter the First — Incognito
§ 1
MR. PREEMBY had disappeared from Christina Alberta’s world. For a time he must disappear almost as completely from this story. Mr. Preemby fades out. Taking over his outward likeness we have now to tell of another and greater person, Sargon the First, the Magnificent One, King of all Kings, the Inheritor of the Earth.
It is no doubt a very wonderful and glorious thing to discover that instead of being the rather obscure widower of a laundry proprietor with no particular purpose in the world one is Lord of the Whole World, but it is also, to a conscientious man anxious to do right, an extremely disturbing and oppressive discovery. And at first it is natural that there should be something a little confusing to the mind in this vast and glittering idea. It was an idea that carried with it an effect of release and enlargement. For purposes as yet obscure, he had been caught like a caged creature in that limited and uninteresting Preemby life. His imagination had rebelled against its finality; some deep instinct had warned him that his life was an illusion; in moments of reverie, and sometimes between sleeping and waking, there had been intimations of a light and purpose beyond the apparent reality. Now abruptly, as though a portal swung open, as though a curtain was drawn, that light poured upon him dazzlingly. His was no single life that begins and ends and is done with like an empty song. His existence was like a thread that shone and vanished and returned in the unending fabric of being; that was woven into a purpose. In the past he had been Porg in the city of Kleb, and he had been Sargon and Belshazzar. Many others had he been, but those memories still slumbered under the dark waters of forgetfulness. But the memory of Sargon shone bright. It was his Sargon self that had returned and no other of his selves. For some reason that was still obscure the Power that ruled his life needed him to be Sargon once again, in this great distressful world of to-day. Sargon had begun life humbly as an outcast babe and had risen to restore and rule and extend a mightier Empire than the old world had ever seen before. Certain qualities (h’rrmp) had been displayed by Sargon, and because of these qualities the Power had called upon him again.
A whole series of memories was unfolding in his mind. With an extraordinary convincingness he recalled his youth, memories of those distant days in Sumeria where the Power had set him on high. They were so bright and so pleasing that already they were thrusting his recollections of Sheringham and Woodford Wells into the background, making a fading phantom of his Preemby existence. He had never cherished these latter experiences, never turned them over in his mind with any pleasure. But his newly-restored memories were memories to dwell upon. There were pictures of his early life when he was a foundling, a mysterious foundling at the court of his predecessor. (That predecessor’s name still escaped him.) Young Sargon was a fair and blue-eyed youth, a thing rare in brown Sumeria, and he had been found floating down the great river in a little cradle boat of rushes and bitumen, and he had been taken and adopted by the ruler of the land. And already as a lad he was pointed out as having an exceptional wisdom, as being able to do what other men could not do, he had the genius of the ruler. It was not that he had great cleverness nor great skill nor strength. Many of those about him excelled him in these minor things—in cleverness and memory work in particular, Prewm, the son of the Grand Vizier, excelled him—but he had the true, the kingly wisdom beyond them all.
“The true, the kingly wisdom,” said Mr. Preemby-Sargon aloud and came into sharp collision with a tall, dark gentleman hurrying from St. James’s Park towards St. James’s Palace. “Sorry!” cried Mr. Preemby-Sargon.
“My fault,” said the tall, dark gentleman. “Late for an appointment.” And swept on.
Odd! Where had Mr. Preemby—or Sargon—seen that face before? Could it be—Something connected it vaguely with Sheringham and sunlit sand. And then Sumeria came uppermost and the tall, dark gentleman became the chieftain of a desert tribe, a desert tribe amidst the sands.
The ruffled surface became calm again, and that boyhood in Sumeria resumed possession of the mirror. Where were we? Even in those early days men had marked a gravity in the lad beyond his years. He had avoided puerile games. In all his lives he had avoided puerile games. No cricketer even at Sheringham. Modestly but firmly this youth had raised his voice in the council chamber and his words were seen to be wisdom. The old men had sat around marvelling. “He sayeth Sooth,” they said in their antique Sumerian way. A soothsayer. He was also called the Young Pathfinder.
Before Sargon was fifteen the old childless ruler, beset by enemies, threatened with plots, had marked him. “This boy might save the state.” Then, while yet only a few days over eighteen he was given charge of an expedition to pacify the mountain folk of the north and persuade them not to ally themselves with the Enemy of the North. He did more than he was told to do. He went through the mountain land into the plains beyond, and gave battle to the Enemy of the North and defeated him and smote him severely. After that all men perceived that he must be the new Lord and Master of Sumeria, the successor of his aged Patron. All applauded with sincerity except Prewm the Clever (already adorned with precocious sprouting whiskers) and he applauded with envy in his eyes. And then came the days of the Succession, and the Inauguration of the Harem, beautiful days. And after that the birth of the Princess Royal, his only child, and that great expedition into the deserts of the south. And more expeditions and great law-makings, wise laws and wiser, and crowds of applauding, grateful people and happy villages. Life became happy universally. Prewm plotted and rebelled and was dealt with after the simple custom of the time. That was a regrettable necessity, a thing not to be dwelt upon. The frontiers spread and the great peace spread; Russia, Turkey in Europe, Persia, India, Ancient Egypt, Somaliland, and so on and so forth, were conquered and made happy. America and Australia and the remains of Atlantis, still not completely submerged, were discovered. They were forgotten again afterwards, but they were really discovered then—and paid tribute. A League of Nations was established.
All the world told of the goodness of Sargon and lived golden days. For Sargon ruled by the light of justice in his heart. He mitigated the sacrifices in the Temples and introduced a kind of Protestantism into the creeds and services. The people made songs praising him. Passing men and women would run to kiss his hand. Nor did he deny himself to his people. That confidence was his end. Came alas! the assassin’s knife, the black assassin, a madman, a stranger——!
It was wonderful. He could remember his people mourning after he was dead.
The white glove of a policeman against Mr. Preemby-Sargon’s chest just saved him from stepping in front of a motor ’bus. He recoiled dexterously. He was in Trafalgar Square, a great meeting-place, a confluence. Here in the warm light of the October afternoon was a crowd even greater than the Sumerian crowds. Here he would observe them. They were dark crowds, anxious-faced crowds. His coming back had to do with them. There had been a great war, much devastation; the world was wounded and unable to recover. The poor rulers and politicians of this age had no wisdom, had no instinct for the fundamentally right thing. Once more a leader and a saviour was required, one who had the wisdom that counts.
It was Sargon that walked under the noses of Nelson’s lions and made his way past the statue of George the Fourth to the balustrading that commands the square. He took up his position there for a long survey. He looked down Whitehall to the great tower of the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall was full of a golden haze set with a glitter of traffic. The stream of omnibuses, cars, and motor vans poured up to mingle with the streams that came out of Northumberland Avenue and the Strand, and the joint flow sundered again to the left of him and to the right away to Pall Mall, across the square there. No street lamps were lit as yet, but in the rounded bluffs of building to the left a few windows were warm with lights. Below, across the square, thin streams of pedestrians flowed like ants from one point to another and the squat little station of the Tube Railway perpetually swallowed up dots and clumps of individuals. Some sort of meeting was going on at the foot of the Nelson column, a mere knot of people without evident enthusiasm. Men with white and red placards about Unemployment were distributing white handbills and shaking collecting boxes. Immediately underneath a few poorly-dressed children ran about and played and squabbled....
Just a little patch this was in one of his cities. For, you see, by the lapse of time and the development of his ancient empire, he was the rightful owner and ruler of this city and of every other city in the world.
And he had come back to heal the swarming world’s disorders and reinstate the deep peace of old Sumeria once again.