‘That Very Mab’ by May Kendall and Andrew Lang ‘Ah! now I see Queen Mab has been with you’ γλαῦκ’ Ἀθήναζε LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1885 Contents CHAPTER I. — UNDER TWO FLAGS CHAPTER II. — DISILLUSIONS CHAPTER III. — THE ORIGIN OF RELIGION CHAPTER IV. — THE POET AND THE PALÆONTO-THEOLOGIST CHAPTER V. — ST. GEORGE FOR MERRY ENGLAND CHAPTER VI. — JUSTICE AND THE NEW DEMOCRACY CHAPTER VII. — MACHINERY AND THE SUCCESSFUL MERCHANT CHAPTER VIII. — THE BEAUTIFUL CHAPTER IX. — IN WHICH THE NIHILIST, THE DEMOCRAT, AND THE PROFESSOR OFFER A SUGGESTION TO THE BISHOP CHAPTER X. — THE SUBSEQUENT CAREER OF THE NIHILIST CHAPTER XI. — HOME AND FOREIGN POLICY COMBINED CHAPTER XII. — THE DELUGE ‘THAT VERY MAB’ CHAPTER I. UNDER TWO FLAGS. ‘You send out teachers of religion to undermine and ruin the people.’ Black Flag Proclamation to the French, 1883. The moonlight, in wave on wave of silver, flooded all the Sacred Island. Far away and faint ran the line of the crests of Samoa, like the hills of heaven in the old ballad, or a scene in the Italian opera. Then came a voice from the Calling Place, and the smooth sea thrilled, and all the fishes leaped, and the Sacred Isle itself was moved, and shuddered to its inmost heart. Again and again came the voice, and now it rose and fell in the cadences of a magical song (or _Karakia_, if we _must_ have local colour), and the words were not of this world. Then, behold, the smooth seas began to break and plash round the foremost cape of the Holy Island, and to close again behind, like water before the keel and behind the stern of a running ship, so they plashed, and broke, and fell. Next the surface was stirred far off with the gambolling and sporting of innumerable fishes; the dolphin was tumbling in the van; the flying fish hovered and shone and sank; and clearer, always, and yet more clear came the words of the song from Samoa. Clearer and louder, moment by moment, rose the voice of Queen Mab, where she stood on the Calling Place of the Gods, and chanted to the Islands, and to the sea, and the dwellers in the sea. It was not that she left her stand, nor came nearer, but the Sacred Island itself was steering straight, like a magical barque, drawn by the wonderful song, to the mystic shore of Samoa. Now Queen Mab, where she stood among her court, with the strange brown fairies of the Southern Ocean, could behold the Sacred Island, with all its fairy crew. Beautiful things they seemed, as the sailing isle drew nearer, beautiful and naked, and brave with purple pan-danus flowers, and with red and yellow necklets of the scented seed of the pandanus. At last Queen Mab, the fairy in the fluttering wings of green, clapped her hands, and, with a little soft shock, the Sacred Island ran in and struck on the haunted beach of Samoa. What was Queen Mab doing here, so far away from England? England she had left long ago; when the Puritans arose the Fairies vanished.