Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/208

 Out again in the square the music called me now, and I knew that it was not instrumental but the production of the  human voice.

The vast throng stood facing a choir of a hundred youths and as many maidens, who occupied a semicircular platform ranged around a sort of pulpit. Now for the first time I had a good view of these Martians, and saw that,  except for the strange blackness about the face, the men  were just the same as the men on Earth, and the nature  of this discoloration I was now able to comprehend at a  glance.

The faces of the women were perfectly fair, so with the boys; some of the young men exhibited the blackness, others  younger did not, but no such thing as beards could be seen. The blackness, then, was the sign of virility, and really, when one comes to think of it, was no more disfiguring than a  beard.

They were singing, and such amazing singing! From those two hundred human throats issued every sound capable of being produced by the finest orchestra ever gathered  together. How they did it I do not pretend to say, but I could hear the notes of violins, flutes, flageolets, cornets  and instruments innumerable, even to the bass viol and the  boom of the big bass drum.

Again I was at Maurice’s side. He was watching and listening.

Presently a man ascended the rostrum, and bareheaded, beneath those broad spreading branches, began to address  the multitude. Intense grew my interest when I perceived that this man was Mr. Mirrikh. He announced that he would continue his lecture upon the manners and customs  of the planet Earth.

And he spoke well. For fully fifteen minutes I listened. It seemed to be one of a series of lectures describing his earth journey. The point upon which he particularly dwelt was the gross ignorance in which the inhabitants of  our planet were plunged concerning spiritual laws; our general disbelief in the existence and importance of such laws,  extending even in many instances to a total denial of the  existence of spirit and a spiritual world.

“And on their planet, even among those who admit the existence of a life after death, my friends,” he shouted,  “there is but little knowledge and still less desire to attain