"I am a very old man, and though I have retained my powers of mind and
body in a degree that is unusual in Meleager, whose denizens fade as
they mature earlier than do those of the Earth, the inevitable call has
sounded at last, and in my case more swiftly and suddenly than I could
have wished. For many months past I have been deeply distressed on
your behalf, my son. I have been rent and vexed by the rival claims of
duty towards my office and of my pity and affection towards yourself.
Or rather, I have been speculating with ceaseless anxiety as to where
my real duty lay. As a councillor of the hierarchy of Meleager and a
keeper of The Secret I am impelled to abandon you to your fate, be
what it may; yet as one who is about to say farewell to all things in
this existence, I feel I cannot, I must not depart thus without lifting
from you the cloud of subtlety and intrigue wherewith your young life
is overshadowed. I have endured hideous visions upon my bed; I have
heard your voice of reproach and pictured your final struggle; I have
communed with my own soul in perfect frankness; and as the result of
this spiritual conflict, involving so many diverse arguments, I am here
to-day to warn you."
Again the old man extended his wasted arms towards me and embraced me
with a renewed burst of tenderness. Then he motioned to me to resume my
seat.
"I must hasten to divulge what is lying like a load upon my heart, for
my span of life can now but be reckoned by hours, not days. In the
first place you have been grievously, wilfully deceived by our envoy on
Earth and also by myself (though herein I have been merely following
the normal trend of our polity) in one most important matter. For
you have been permitted, even encouraged, to believe that your reign
here in Meleager can be indefinitely prolonged, provided you do not
set yourself to withstand or embarrass the ruling hierarchy of this
planet. Only theoretically is this true. It is a fact, I admit, that
our kings can be rejuvenated over and over again, and by this means be
enabled to survive generation after generation of Meleagrians--but
this never happens in reality. Not a few monarchs have these aged eyes
of mine witnessed in Meleager, and I have heard tell of others, but
not one of these has attained to so much as two lustres of regnant
power in the star to which they had been translated under circumstances
similar to your own. It is true our kings have often brought premature
and well-deserved disaster on their own heads, but of such I am not
now thinking. I am speaking of our hierarchy who are by no means
immaculate, and whose intrigues and jealousy will not permit any
monarch to escape his predetermined end, no matter how conspicuous
his merits. Not that all our members are tainted with this disease of
treachery, that is far from being the case; but in every executive
body so strong is the spirit of self-interest that no scruples will