Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/90

 you, nor in fact toward any one else. All God’s creatures are my friends, and in a fashion I try to love them all; for by loving his creatures I adore the Almighty himself. White or black, red or yellow, it makes no difference; men are men, intelligence is intelligence. What is it to me that you are representatives of a race widely different from my own?”

“Your views are most broad and harmonize with mine exactly,” replied Maurice; “but can you wonder at our curiosity”

“I do not wonder at it.”

“Then gratify it.”

“That would be impossible.”

“Why so?”

“For an excellent reason. The intelligence of neither one of you has been cultivated to the point of understanding any explanation I could make.”

“I beg to differ with you!” cried Philpot. “Try us and see. If you were up stairs how the devil did you get down stairs without running against us? If you were alone up there, how happens it that we hear”

“Pardon me. You heard me singing.”

“How many voices do you usually keep about you? I’ll swear I heard at least six at once.”

“As I was saying, Mr. De Veber,” continued Mirrikh, ignoring the question; “it is useless for me to attempt to explain what your minds—and I say it without the slightest desire to cast reflection—are incapable of comprehending. You ask me how I passed down from the top of the tower to the bottom without meeting you on the stairs”

“I beg your pardon, I didn’t ask it,” said Maurice; “but I’d like to.”

“And I would like to answer but I cannot, further than to say that in doing what I did—and I don’t deny that I did it—I simply put into action a force as purely natural as the force of gravitation. Further than this I do not care to go.”

“Prove the existence of such a force by exerting it now,” I said. “By your strange conduct I have been placed in a most ambiguous position. I’m entitled to some consideration on that account if for no other reason.”

“Mr. Wylde! Is it so? I deeply regret it,” he exclaimed, in a tone of concern. “Still I am no charlatan. I cannot