Nation

“Great heavens! ”

“So I poisoned him. Well, sort of. But the Nation called it something like… what do you call it when a hangman hangs somebody? ”

“Er… a judicial execution? ” said His Excellency, a man trying hard to keep up.

“That’s right. And I broke another man’s nose with a clay bowl because he was going to shoot me. ”

“Really? Well, I suppose poison would have taken too long, ” said His Excellency, attempting to make the best of it. His face was ghastly in the lamplight, and it looked to Daphne as if it was made of wax and was about to melt.

“Now that I come to talk about it, it does all seem a bit… um… ” She trailed off.

“Busy? ” her father suggested.

And then she told him everything else — about the way the moon shone over the lagoon, and how bright the stars were, and the mutiny, and poor Captain Roberts, and the parrot, and the red crabs, and the pantaloon birds, and the tree-climbing octopi and First Mate Cox, while the gods looked down. She towed him past the hundreds of white slabs around the walls, talking all the time.

“Look, that’s a giraffe. They knew about Africa! There’s an elephant farther on, but it may be Indian. This is clearly a lion. One of the stones that ended up on the beach has got a carving of a horse on it, and who would bring one here? But the carvings on these other panels don’t seem to show anything I can recognize, so I’m wondering if this section is some kind of alphabet — A is for apple and so on — but a lot of panels have these lines and dots around the edges, so I could be completely wrong. And see how often there is a hand somewhere in the carving! I’m positive it’s there as a guide to size. And over here… ” And so on, until at last she finished with: “And I’m sure they had a telescope. ”

“Oh, surely not! Is there a carving of one? ”

“Well, no. But a lot of slabs are missing. ” Then she told him about the sons of Jupiter and the snake around Saturn.

He didn’t seem too impressed, but he patted her on the hand. “Or the skies were clearer once, ” he said. “Or there was a man with extremely good eyesight. ”

“But I’ve come up with a good scientific explanation! ”

Her father shook his head. “Much as I love you, it’s a guess. And, may I say, a hope. You must work harder than that, my girl. ”

Ah, those arguments we used to have coming back from the society, Daphne thought. I’m going to have to fight. Good!

She pointed to the gods. “They shine because they are covered with little plates of glass, ” she said. “Those are held on with lead nails. One of the boys swam over and had a look for me. The people here knew how to make fine glass! ”

Her father, sitting with his back to the cool stone, gave a nod. “That is quite likely. Many cultures make glass. We have the beginnings of a hypothesis, but you need to find your lens maker. ”

“Papa, it stands to reason that sooner or later a glassmaker would notice a bubble in the glass and see how the light — ”

But her father had held up a hand. “Science is not interested in what ‘stands to reason, ’” he said. “It ‘stands to reason’ that the Earth is flat. What we know is that the Romans took some interest in crude lenses, and that eyeglasses were not invented until the thirteenth century. The Italian Salvino D’Armate is generally credited with — ”

“Why is it always so, so… northern hemisphere? ” said Daphne. “Turn the world upside down! ” She pulled her father over to the wall near the globe and pointed to a panel. “You remember I told you they were very keen on showing hands holding things, too? ” she said, and held up the lamp. “There! Doesn’t that look like a pair of spectacles to you? ”

He looked at the panel critically, like a man trying to decide between cake and pie.

“It could be, ” he said, “but it could be a mask, or scales, or have some mysterious religious significance. It doesn’t help you much, I’m sorry to say. ”

Daphne sighed. “Look, if I found some evidence that they knew about lenses, would you accept they may have known how to build a telescope? ”

“Yes, that would be reasonable. I won’t accept that they did, mind you, only that they may have done so. ”

“Come and see. ”

This time she led him to the other side of the gods, to a niche in the wall where the white panel had fallen out.

“One of the boys found them in silt at the bottom of the god pool. The glass is broken on one side and the other is cracked, but you can see they were lenses. Be careful. ” She laid them carefully in his hand.

He blinked. “Gold-rimmed spectacles… ” But he breathed the words rather than said them.

“Have I proved my telescope theory, Papa? ” she said gleefully. “We know that eyeglasses lead on to telescopes. ”

“Once before, at least. Or since, I’m sure you would say. Why didn’t you show me these straightaway? ”

“I just wanted to make you admit I was doing proper science! ”

“Well done, ” said His Excellency. “You have built a very strong hypothesis indeed, but I’m sorry to say that you have not proved the full theory. You’d need to find the telescope for that. ”

“That’s unfair! ” said Daphne.