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23 - Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey · Classic Adventure Books Library

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  Chapter twenty three, Lord Hothead again, and this time a fuller account of
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  him, his wondrous tales concerning the Coltiquerps, where they came from, who
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  they were, and how they managed to live in this world of eternal frost,
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  the many questions I put to him, and his answers in full.
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  Lord Bulibrain was never allowed to set foot inside the Palace of Ice. King
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  Gelidas, backed by the opinion of his favorites, still indulge the belief that
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  he would be able in the inn to refrigerate him. True, he had
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  been many years at the task, so that it had now become a sort
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  of hobby of his. And almost daily did his frigid majesty pay a visit
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  to his hot headed subject and test his temperature by pressing his small boll of
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  ice against his temples. To King Galidas's mind, a man of so high
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  a temperature was a continual menace to the peace and quiet of his kingdom.
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  What if Lord Hothead, in a dream should wander forth some night and fall
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  asleep with his back against one of the walls of the Ice Palace, might
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  he not melt away enough of it to throw the whole glorious fabric into a
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  slump and slush of debris. It was terrible to think of when he did
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  think of it, and he thought of it quite often. But Bulabrain held
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  no terrors for me, nor for Bulgar either. In fact, Bulgar was
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  delighted to be stroked by a warm hand, and he and Bulabrain and Eye
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  soon became the very best of friends. But his frigid majesty was so alarmed
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  when he heard of this friendship that he was seized with quite a spasm of
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  warmth. For thought he the united heat of three hot heads might work some
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  terrible harm to the welfare of his people. So he issued the coldest kind
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  of decree, carved on a tablet of ice, that Bulibrain and I should,
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  on no one day pass more than a half hour together. That we
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  should never touch palm to palm, sleep in the same room, eat from
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  the same dish, or sit on the same divan. These regulations were annoying,
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  but I followed them to the letter. And when King Gelidoe I saw
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  how careful I was to yield the strictest obedience to his decree, he conceived
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  a genuine affection for me and sent several magnificent pelts to the ice house,
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  which had been assigned to Bulgar and me, For of course, it would
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  not have been safe for us to lodge in the palace itself. But his
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  frigid Majesty held out the flattering prospect that the very moment Bulgar and I should
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  become properly refrigerated, apartments in the palace would be assigned to us, and
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  in fact, that I should be permitted to eat at the royal table.
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  Who are the Colti Corps? Where did these strange folk come from? How
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  did they ever find their way down into this world of eternal frost? And
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  above all, where did they get their food and clothing from? These were
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  a few of the questions which I was so impatient to have answered. That
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  my temperature was raised a whole degree, and I was obliged to sleep with
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  only one single pelt between me and my divan of crystal ice. For a
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  man bred and born in so cold a country as the land of the Colti
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  Corps, but the brain had an extremely quick active mind. On account of
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  his rapid heartbeat and the consequent high temperature of his body, he was not
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  able to do his writing on slabs of ice, as other learned Culti corpse
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  had done, for it would not have been a pleasant thing for him to
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  see a poem which he had just finished literally melt away in his hands without
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  so much as leaving an ink stain behind. So he had been obliged,
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  with King Galadas's permission, to do his writing on thin tablets of alabaster.
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  Before he began to talk to me about the progenitors of the Colti corpse,
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  he showed me a map of the country in the Upper World once inhabited by
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  them, and traced for me the course they had sailed upon abandoning that country,
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  and described the beautiful shores they had landed upon in their search for a
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  new home. I saw at a glance that it was green Land which Boulibrain
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  was thus unconsciously describing, and knowing as I did, that in past ages
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  Greenland had been a land of blue skies, warm winds, green meadows,
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  and fertile vas alleys, before moving mountains of ice came down from the north
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  and crushed all life out of it. I listened with breathless interest to his
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  wonderful tales of its beautiful lakes nestled at the foot of vine clad mountains,
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  all of which Bulabrain now looked upon in fair visions inherited from his ancestors.
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  And I also knew that it must have been the Arctic Ocean which had been
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  traversed by the ships of the Coultiqorps, who had then landed upon thee in
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  those days sunny shores of northern Russia. But the mountains of ice could sail
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  too, and they followed the fleeing Colti Corps like mighty monsters, dashing themselves
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  with terrible roar and crash upon the peaceful shores, which they soon transformed into
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  a wilderness of burgh, of glacier and of floe. Only a handful of
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  the Colti Corps survived, and these, in their dumb despair, taking refuge
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  in the clefts and caverns of the North Urals, could, from their hiding
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  places look upon one of the strangest sights that had ever greeted human eyes.
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  So rapid had been the advance of these mighty masses of ice, crashing against
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  the mountain sides and rending the very rocks in their fury, that the air
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  gave up its warmth, and the sun was powerless to give it back again.
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  The animals of the wild wood and the beasts of the field, overtaken
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  in their flight, perished as they ran and stood there, stark and stiff,
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  with heads up, tossed and mussels knotted. Then, by the thousands
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  and ten times thousands, the crushed crystals of the pursuing floods caught up like
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  moss and leaves in a mountain torrent, and packed in every cave and cavern
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  on the way, tearing broader and loftier portals into these subterranean chambers so that
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  they might do their work the better. And these, then, o Bleibrain,
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  are your meat quarries, I exclaimed, whence ye dry your daily food?
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  Even so, little Barren, replied the hot headed Coltiquorp. And not
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  only our food, but the skins which serve us so admirably for clothing in
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  this cold underground world, and the oil too, which burns in our beautiful
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  alabaster lamps, besides a hundred other things, such as bone for hues and
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  handles, horn for needles and buttons and eating utensils, wool for the weaving
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  of our under garments, and magnificent pelts of bear and seal and walrus,
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  which laid upon our benches, and divans of crystal ice transform them into beds
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  and couches which even an inhabitant of thy world might envy. But o Bulibrain
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  I cried out, have ye not almost exhausted? These supplies will not death
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  from starvation? Soon? Stare ye all in the face in these deep and
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  icy caverns of the underworld, visited by the sun's light, yet unwarmed by
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  it. Nay, little Barren, answered Bulebraine, with a smile almost as
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  warm as one of my own. Let not that thought give thee a moment's
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  alarm, for we have as yet barely raised the lid of this ice box
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  of nature's packing. We are not large eaters anyway, continued Lord hotthead For
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  while it is true that we are not indolent people, for His frigid Majesty's
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  palace and our dwellings need constant repair, and new hatchets and axes must be
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  chipp'd out in the flint quarries, and new lamps carved, and new garments
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  woven, Yet is also true that we take life rather easy. We have
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  no enemies to slay, no quarrels to settle no gold to fight over,
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  no land to drive our fellow creatures from, and fence in. Nor can
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  we be ill if we were willing to be, for in this pure,
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  cold, crisp air, disease would try in vain to sow her poisoned germs,
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  Hence needing no doctors, we have none, as we have no lawyers
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  either or merchants to sell us what belongs to us already. His frigid majesty
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  is an excellent king. I never read of a better one. I doubt
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  that his like exists in the upper world. Always cool headed, all thought
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  of conquest, no dreams of power, no long means for empty pomp and
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  show ever enter his mind. Since the day his father died and we set
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  the great Colti corp crown of crystal ice upon his cool brow, his temperature
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  has never risen but half a degree, and that was only for a brief
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  hour or so, and was occasioned by a mad proposal of one of his
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  counselors, who claimed that he had discovered an explosive compound, something like the
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  gunpowder of thy world. I fancy by which he could shatter the glorious window
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  of rock crystal set in the mountain dome of our underworld, and let in
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  the warm sunshine. Did his frigid majesty Gelidus put this daring colti corp to
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  death? I asked, oh, dear, No, replied Belibraine. He
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  merely ordered him to be refrigerated for so many hours a day, until all
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  his feverish projects had been chilled to death. For no doubt, little Baron,
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  a man of thy deep learning, knows full well that all the ills
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  which thy world suffers from are the children of fevered brains, of mines made
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  restless and visionary by the high temperature of the blood which gallops through the approaches
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  to the dome of thought, stirring up wild dreams and visions as thy son
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  lifts the poisonous vapor from the stagnant pool. The more I listened to Bulbrain,
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  the more I liked him. The fact of the matter is, I
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  preferred to sit in his narrow cell, with its plain walls of ice,
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  lighted up by a single alabaster lamp, and converse with him to loitering in
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  the splendid throne room of his frigid majesty King Gelidus. But Bulgar had discovered
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  that the pelts of Princess Schnebula's divan were much thicker, softer, and warmer
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  than the single one allowed Lord Hothead, and therefore he preferred spending his time
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  with her. But fearing lest he might get into mischief, I didn't dare
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  to leave him alone with the Princess for too long at a time. End
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  of Chapter twenty three