THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

And Other Stories

H. G. WELLS

[Illustration: He stopped, and then made a dash to escape from theirclosing ranks. ]

INTRODUCTION

The enterprise of Messrs. T. Nelson & Sons and the friendly accommodationof Messrs. Macmillan render possible this collection in one cover of allthe short stories by me that I care for any one to read again. Except forthe two series of linked incidents that make up the bulk of the bookcalled _Tales of Space and Time_, no short story of mine of theslightest merit is excluded from this volume. Many of very questionablemerit find a place; it is an inclusive and not an exclusive gathering. And the task of selection and revision brings home to me with something ofthe effect of discovery that I was once an industrious writer of shortstories, and that I am no longer anything of the kind. I have not writtenone now for quite a long time, and in the past five or six years I havemade scarcely one a year. The bulk of the fifty or sixty tales from whichthis present three-and-thirty have been chosen dates from the lastcentury. This edition is more definitive than I supposed when first Iarranged for it. In the presence of so conclusive an ebb and cessation analmost obituary manner seems justifiable. 

I find it a little difficult to disentangle the causes that haverestricted the flow of these inventions. It has happened, I remark, toothers as well as to myself, and in spite of the kindliest encouragementto continue from editors and readers. There was a time when life bubbledwith short stories; they were always coming to the surface of my mind, andit is no deliberate change of will that has thus restricted my production. It is rather, I think, a diversion of attention to more sustained and moreexacting forms. It was my friend Mr. C. L. Hind who set that spring going. He urged me to write short stories for the _Pall Mall Budget_, andpersuaded me by his simple and buoyant conviction that I could do what hedesired. There existed at the time only the little sketch, "The Jilting ofJane, " included in this volume--at least, that is the only tolerablefragment of fiction I find surviving from my pre-Lewis-Hind period. But Iset myself, so encouraged, to the experiment of inventing moving andinteresting things that could be given vividly in the little space ofeight or ten such pages as this, and for a time I found it a veryentertaining pursuit indeed. Mr. Hind's indicating finger had shown me anamusing possibility of the mind. I found that, taking almost anything as astarting-point and letting my thoughts play about it, there wouldpresently come out of the darkness, in a manner quite inexplicable, someabsurd or vivid little incident more or less relevant to that initialnucleus. Little men in canoes upon sunlit oceans would come floating outof nothingness, incubating the eggs of prehistoric monsters unawares;violent conflicts would break out amidst the flower-beds of suburbangardens; I would discover I was peering into remote and mysterious worldsruled by an order logical indeed but other than our common sanity. 

The 'nineties was a good and stimulating period for a short-story writer. Mr. Kipling had made his astonishing advent with a series of littleblue-grey books, whose covers opened like window-shutters to revealthe dusty sun-glare and blazing colours of the East; Mr. Barrie haddemonstrated what could be done in a little space through the panes of his_Window in Thrums_. The _National Observer_ was at the climax ofits career of heroic insistence upon lyrical brevity and a vivid finish, and Mr. Frank Harris was not only printing good short stories by otherpeople, but writing still better ones himself in the dignified pages ofthe _Fortnightly Review. Longman's Magazine_, too, represented a_clientèle_ of appreciative short-story readers that is nowscattered. Then came the generous opportunities of the _Yellow Book_, and the _National Observer_ died only to give birth to the _NewReview_. No short story of the slightest distinction went for longunrecognised. The sixpenny popular magazines had still to deaden down theconception of what a short story might be to the imaginative limitation ofthe common reader--and a maximum length of six thousand words. Shortstories broke out everywhere. Kipling was writing short stories; Barrie, Stevenson, Frank-Harris; Max Beerbohm wrote at least one perfect one, "TheHappy Hypocrite"; Henry James pursued his wonderful and inimitable bent;and among other names that occur to me, like a mixed handful of jewelsdrawn from a bag, are George Street, Morley Roberts, George Gissing, Ellad'Arcy, Murray Gilchrist, E. Nesbit, Stephen Crane, Joseph Conrad, EdwinPugh, Jerome K. Jerome, Kenneth Graham, Arthur Morrison, Marriott Watson, George Moore, Grant Allen, George Egerton, Henry Harland, Pett Ridge, W. W. Jacobs (who alone seems inexhaustible). I dare say I could recall asmany more names with a little effort. I may be succumbing to theinfirmities of middle age, but I do not think the present decade canproduce any parallel to this list, or what is more remarkable, that thelater achievements in this field of any of the survivors from that time, with the sole exception of Joseph Conrad, can compare with the work theydid before 1900. It seems to me this outburst of short stories came notonly as a phase in literary development, but also as a phase in thedevelopment of the individual writers concerned. 

It is now quite unusual to see any adequate criticism of short stories inEnglish. I do not know how far the decline in short-story writing may notbe due to that. Every sort of artist demands human responses, and few mencan contrive to write merely for a publisher's cheque and silence, howeverreassuring that cheque may be. A mad millionaire who commissionedmasterpieces to burn would find it impossible to buy them. Scarcely anyartist will hesitate in the choice between money and attention; and it wasprimarily for that last and better sort of pay that the short stories ofthe 'nineties were written. People talked about them tremendously, compared them, and ranked them. That was the thing that mattered. 

It was not, of course, all good talk, and we suffered then, as now, fromthe _à priori_ critic. Just as nowadays he goes about declaring thatthe work of such-and-such a dramatist is all very amusing and delightful, but "it isn't a Play, " so we' had a great deal of talk about _the_short story, and found ourselves measured by all kinds of arbitrarystandards. There was a tendency to treat the short story as though it wasas definable a form as the sonnet, instead of being just exactly what anyone of courage and imagination can get told in twenty minutes' reading orso. It was either Mr. Edward Garnett or Mr. George Moore in a violentlyanti-Kipling mood who invented the distinction between the short story andthe anecdote. The short story was Maupassant; the anecdote was damnable. It was a quite infernal comment in its way, because it permitted nodefence. Fools caught it up and used it freely. Nothing is so destructivein a field of artistic effort as a stock term of abuse. Anyone could sayof any short story, "A mere anecdote, " just as anyone can say"Incoherent!" of any novel or of any sonata that isn't studiouslymonotonous. The recession of enthusiasm for this compact, amusing form isclosely associated in my mind with that discouraging imputation. One felthopelessly open to a paralysing and unanswerable charge, and one's easeand happiness in the garden of one's fancies was more and more marred bythe dread of it. It crept into one's mind, a distress as vague andinexpugnable as a sea fog on a spring morning, and presently one shiveredand wanted to go indoors... It is the absurd fate of the imaginative writerthat he should be thus sensitive to atmospheric conditions. 

But after one has died as a maker one may still live as a critic, and Iwill confess I am all for laxness and variety in this as in every field ofart. Insistence upon rigid forms and austere unities seems to me theinstinctive reaction of the sterile against the fecund. It is the tiredman with a headache who values a work of art for what it does not contain. I suppose it is the lot of every critic nowadays to suffer fromindigestion and a fatigued appreciation, and to develop a self-protectivetendency towards rules that will reject, as it were, automatically themore abundant and irregular forms. But this world is not for the weary, and in the long-run it is the new and variant that matter. I refusealtogether to recognise any hard and fast type for the Short Story, anymore than I admit any limitation upon the liberties of the Small Picture. The short story is a fiction that may be read in something under an hour, and so that it is moving and delightful, it does not matter whether it isas "trivial" as a Japanese print of insects seen closely between grassstems, or as spacious as the prospect of the plain of Italy from MonteMottarone. It does not matter whether it is human or inhuman, or whetherit leaves you thinking deeply or radiantly but superficially pleased. Somethings are more easily done as short stories than others and moreabundantly done, but one of the many pleasures of short-story writing isto achieve the impossible. 

At any rate, that is the present writer's conception of the art of theshort story, as the jolly art of making something very bright and moving;it may be horrible or pathetic or funny or beautiful or profoundlyilluminating, having only this essential, that it should take from fifteento fifty minutes to read aloud. All the rest is just whatever inventionand imagination and the mood can give--a vision of buttered slides on abusy day or of unprecedented worlds. In that spirit of miscellaneousexpectation these stories should be received. Each is intended to be athing by itself; and if it is not too ungrateful to kindly andenterprising publishers, I would confess I would much prefer to see eachprinted expensively alone, and left in a little brown-paper cover to lieabout a room against the needs of a quite casual curiosity. And I wouldrather this volume were found in the bedrooms of convalescents and indentists' parlours and railway trains than in gentlemen's studies. I wouldrather have it dipped in and dipped in again than read severely through. Essentially it is a miscellany of inventions, many of which were verypleasant to write; and its end is more than attained if some of them arerefreshing and agreeable to read. I have now re-read them all, and I amglad to think I wrote them. I like them, but I cannot tell how much theassociations of old happinesses gives them a flavour for me. I make noclaims for them and no apology; they will be read as long as people readthem. Things written either live or die; unless it be for a place ofjudgment upon Academic impostors, there is no apologetic intermediatestate. 

I may add that I have tried to set a date to most of these stories, butthat they are not arranged in strictly chronological order. 

H. G. WELLS. 

CONTENTS. 

 I. THE JILTING OF JANE

 II. THE CONE

 III. THE STOLEN BACILLUS

 IV. THE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE ORCHID

 V. THE AVU OBSERVATORY

 VI. AEPYORNIS ISLAND

 VII. THE REMARKABLE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES. 

 VIII. THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS. 

 IX. THE MOTH

 X. THE TREASURE IN THE FOREST

 XI. THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM

 XII. UNDER THE KNIFE

 XIII. THE SEA RAIDERS

 XIV. THE OBLITERATED MAN

 XV. THE PLATTNER STORY

 XVI. THE RED ROOM

 XVII. THE PURPLE PILEUS

 XVIII. A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

 XIX. THE CRYSTAL EGG

 XX. THE STAR

 XXI. THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES

 XXII. A VISION OF JUDGMENT

 XXIII. JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD

 XXIV. MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART

 XXV. A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON

 XXVI. THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS

 XXVII. THE NEW ACCELERATOR

XXVIII. THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT

 XXIX. THE MAGIC SHOP

 XXX. THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS

 XXXI. THE DOOR IN THE WALL

 XXXII. THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

XXXIII. THE BEAUTIFUL SUIT

 I. 

 THE JILTING OF JANE. 

As I sit writing in my study, I can hear our Jane bumping her waydownstairs with a brush and dust-pan. She used in the old days to singhymn tunes, or the British national song for the time being, to theseinstruments, but latterly she has been silent and even careful over herwork. Time was when I prayed with fervour for such silence, and my wifewith sighs for such care, but now they have come we are not so glad as wemight have anticipated we should be. Indeed, I would rejoice secretly, though it may be unmanly weakness to admit it, even to hear Jane sing"Daisy, " or, by the fracture of any plate but one of Euphemia's best greenones, to learn that the period of brooding has come to an end. 

Yet how we longed to hear the last of Jane's young man before we heard thelast of him! Jane was always very free with her conversation to my wife, and discoursed admirably in the kitchen on a variety of topics--so well, indeed, that I sometimes left my study door open--our house is a smallone--to partake of it. But after William came, it was always William, nothing but William; William this and William that; and when we thoughtWilliam was worked out and exhausted altogether, then William all overagain. The engagement lasted altogether three years; yet how she gotintroduced to William, and so became thus saturated with him, was always asecret. For my part, I believe it was at the street corner where the Rev. Barnabas Baux used to hold an open-air service after evensong on Sundays. Young Cupids were wont to flit like moths round the paraffin flare of thatcentre of High Church hymn-singing. I fancy she stood singing hymns there, out of memory and her imagination, instead of coming home to get supper, and William came up beside her and said, "Hello!" "Hello yourself!" shesaid; and etiquette being satisfied, they proceeded to talk together. 

As Euphemia has a reprehensible way of letting her servants talk to her, she soon heard of him. "He is _such_ a respectable young man, ma'am, "said Jane, "you don't know. " Ignoring the slur cast on her acquaintance, my wife inquired further about this William. 

"He is second porter at Maynard's, the draper's, " said Jane, "and getseighteen shillings--nearly a pound--a week, m'm; and when the head porterleaves he will be head porter. His relatives are quite superior people, m'm. Not labouring people at all. His father was a greengrosher, m'm, andhad a churnor, and he was bankrup' twice. And one of his sisters is in aHome for the Dying. It will be a very good match for me, m'm, " said Jane, "me being an orphan girl. "

"Then you are engaged to him?" asked my wife. 

"Not engaged, ma'am; but he is saving money to buy a ring--hammyfist. "

"Well, Jane, when you are properly engaged to him you may ask him roundhere on Sunday afternoons, and have tea with him in the kitchen;" for myEuphemia has a motherly conception of her duty towards her maid-servants. And presently the amethystine ring was being worn about the house, evenwith ostentation, and Jane developed a new way of bringing in the joint sothat this gage was evident. The elder Miss Maitland was aggrieved by it, and told my wife that servants ought not to wear rings. But my wife lookedit up in _Enquire Within_ and _Mrs. Motherly's Book of HouseholdManagement_, and found no prohibition. So Jane remained with thishappiness added to her love. 

The treasure of Jane's heart appeared to me to be what respectable peoplecall a very deserving young man. "William, ma'am, " said Jane one daysuddenly, with ill-concealed complacency, as she counted out the beerbottles, "William, ma'am, is a teetotaller. Yes, m'm; and he don't smoke. Smoking, ma'am, " said Jane, as one who reads the heart, "_do_ makesuch a dust about. Beside the waste of money. _And_ the smell. However, I suppose they got to do it--some of them... "

William was at first a rather shabby young man of the ready-made blackcoat school of costume. He had watery gray eyes, and a complexionappropriate to the brother of one in a Home for the Dying. Euphemia didnot fancy him very much, even at the beginning. His eminent respectabilitywas vouched for by an alpaca umbrella, from which he never allowed himselfto be parted. 

"He goes to chapel, " said Jane. "His papa, ma'am----"

"His _what_, Jane?"

"His papa, ma'am, was Church: but Mr. Maynard is a Plymouth Brother, andWilliam thinks it Policy, ma'am, to go there too. Mr. Maynard comes andtalks to him quite friendly when they ain't busy, about using up all theends of string, and about his soul. He takes a lot of notice, do Mr. Maynard, of William, and the way he saves his soul, ma'am. "

Presently we heard that the head porter at Maynard's had left, and thatWilliam was head porter at twenty-three shillings a week. "He is reallykind of over the man who drives the van, " said Jane, "and him married, with three children. " And she promised in the pride of her heart to makeinterest for us with William to favour us so that we might get our parcelsof drapery from Maynard's with exceptional promptitude. 

After this promotion a rapidly-increasing prosperity came upon Jane'syoung man. One day we learned that Mr. Maynard had given William a book. "'Smiles' 'Elp Yourself, ' it's called, " said Jane; "but it ain't comic. Ittells you how to get on in the world, and some what William read to me was_lovely_, ma'am. "

Euphemia told me of this, laughing, and then she became suddenly grave. "Do you know, dear, " she said, "Jane said one thing I did not like. Shehad been quiet for a minute, and then she suddenly remarked, 'William is alot above me, ma'am, ain't he?'"

"I don't see anything in that, " I said, though later my eyes were to beopened. 

One Sunday afternoon about that time I was sitting at my writing-desk--possibly I was reading a good book--when a something went by the window. Iheard a startled exclamation behind me, and saw Euphemia with her handsclasped together and her eyes dilated. "George, " she said in anawe-stricken whisper, "did you see?"

Then we both spoke to one another at the same moment, slowly and solemnly:"_A silk hat! Yellow gloves! A new umbrella!_"

"It may be my fancy, dear, " said Euphemia; "but his tie was very likeyours. I believe Jane keeps him in ties. She told me a little while ago, in a way that implied volumes about the rest of your costume, 'The master_do_ wear pretty ties, ma'am. ' And he echoes all your novelties. "

The young couple passed our window again on their way to their customarywalk. They were arm in arm. Jane looked exquisitely proud, happy, anduncomfortable, with new white cotton gloves, and William, in the silk hat, singularly genteel!

That was the culmination of Jane's happiness. When she returned, "Mr. Maynard has been talking to William, ma'am, " she said, "and he is to servecustomers, just like the young shop gentlemen, during the next sale. Andif he gets on, he is to be made an assistant, ma'am, at the firstopportunity. He has got to be as gentlemanly as he can, ma'am; and if heain't, ma'am, he says it won't be for want of trying. Mr. Maynard has tooka great fancy to him. "

"He _is_ getting on, Jane, " said my wife. 

"Yes, ma'am, " said Jane thoughtfully; "he _is_ getting on. "

And she sighed. 

That next Sunday as I drank my tea I interrogated my wife. "How is thisSunday different from all other Sundays, little woman? What has happened?Have you altered the curtains, or re-arranged the furniture, or where isthe indefinable difference of it? Are you wearing your hair in a new waywithout warning me? I perceive a change clearly, and I cannot for the lifeof me say what it is. "

Then my wife answered in her most tragic voice, "George, " she said, "thatWilliam has not come near the place to-day! And Jane is crying her heartout upstairs. "

There followed a period of silence. Jane, as I have said, stopped singingabout the house, and began to care for our brittle possessions, whichstruck my wife as being a very sad sign indeed. The next Sunday, and thenext, Jane asked to go out, "to walk with William, " and my wife, who neverattempts to extort confidences, gave her permission, and asked noquestions. On each occasion Jane came back looking flushed and verydetermined. At last one day she became communicative. 

"William is being led away, " she remarked abruptly, with a catching of thebreath, apropos of tablecloths. "Yes, m'm. She is a milliner, and she canplay on the piano. "

"I thought, " said my wife, "that you went out with him on Sunday. "

"Not out with him, m'm--after him. I walked along by the side of them, andtold her he was engaged to me. "

"Dear me, Jane, did you? What did they do?"

"Took no more notice of me than if I was dirt. So I told her she shouldsuffer for it. "

"It could not have been a very agreeable walk, Jane. "

"Not for no parties, ma'am. "

"I wish, " said Jane, "I could play the piano, ma'am. But anyhow, I don'tmean to let _her_ get him away from me. She's older than him, and herhair ain't gold to the roots, ma'am. "

It was on the August Bank Holiday that the crisis came. We do not clearlyknow the details of the fray, but only such fragments as poor Jane letfall. She came home dusty, excited, and with her heart hot within her. 

The milliner's mother, the milliner, and William had made a party to theArt Museum at South Kensington, I think. Anyhow, Jane had calmly butfirmly accosted them somewhere in the streets, and asserted her right towhat, in spite of the consensus of literature, she held to be herinalienable property. She did, I think, go so far as to lay hands on him. They dealt with her in a crushingly superior way. They "called a cab. "There was a "scene, " William being pulled away into the four-wheeler byhis future wife and mother-in-law from the reluctant hands of ourdiscarded Jane. There were threats of giving her "in charge. "

"My poor Jane!" said my wife, mincing veal as though she was mincingWilliam. "It's a shame of them. I would think no more of him. He is notworthy of you. "

"No, m'm, " said Jane. "He _is_ weak. 

"But it's that woman has done it, " said Jane. She was never known to bringherself to pronounce "that woman's" name or to admit her girlishness. "Ican't think what minds some women must have--to try and get a girl's youngman away from her. But there, it only hurts to talk about it, " said Jane. 

Thereafter our house rested from William. But there was something in themanner of Jane's scrubbing the front doorstep or sweeping out the rooms, acertain viciousness, that persuaded me that the story had not yet ended. 

"Please, m'm, may I go and see a wedding tomorrow?" said Jane one day. 

My wife knew by instinct whose wedding. "Do you think it is wise, Jane?"she said. 

"I would like to see the last of him, " said Jane. 

"My dear, " said my wife, fluttering into my room about twenty minutesafter Jane had started, "Jane has been to the boot-hole and taken all theleft-off boots and shoes, and gone off to the wedding with them in a bag. Surely she cannot mean--"

"Jane, " I said, "is developing character. Let us hope for the best. "

Jane came back with a pale, hard face. All the boots seemed to be still inher bag, at which my wife heaved a premature sigh of relief. We heard hergo upstairs and replace the boots with considerable emphasis. 

"Quite a crowd at the wedding, ma'am, " she said presently, in a purelyconversational style, sitting in our little kitchen, and scrubbing thepotatoes; "and such a lovely day for them. " She proceeded to numerousother details, clearly avoiding some cardinal incident. 

"It was all extremely respectable and nice, ma'am; but _her_ fatherdidn't wear a black coat, and looked quite out of place, ma'am. Mr. Piddingquirk--"

"_Who_?"

"Mr. Piddingquirk--William that was, ma'am--had white gloves, and a coatlike a clergyman, and a lovely chrysanthemum. He looked so nice, ma'am. And there was red carpet down, just like for gentlefolks. And they say hegave the clerk four shillings, ma'am. It was a real kerridge they had--nota fly. When they came out of church there was rice-throwing, and her twolittle sisters dropping dead flowers. And someone threw a slipper, andthen I threw a boot--"

"Threw a _boot_, Jane!"

"Yes, ma'am. Aimed at her. But it hit _him_. Yes, ma'am, hard. Gevhim a black eye, I should think. I only threw that one. I hadn't the heartto try again. All the little boys cheered when it hit him. "

After an interval--"I am sorry the boot hit _him_. "

Another pause. The potatoes were being scrubbed violently. "He always_was_ a bit above me, you know, ma'am. And he was led away. "

The potatoes were more than finished. Jane rose sharply with a sigh, andrapped the basin down on the table. 

"I don't care, " she said. "I don't care a rap. He will find out hismistake yet. It serves me right. I was stuck up about him. I ought not tohave looked so high. And I am glad things are as things are. "

My wife was in the kitchen, seeing to the higher cookery. After theconfession of the boot-throwing, she must have watched poor Jane fumingwith a certain dismay in those brown eyes of hers. But I imagine theysoftened again very quickly, and then Jane's must have met them. 

"Oh, ma'am, " said Jane, with an astonishing change of note, "think of allthat _might_ have been! Oh, ma'am, I _could_ have been so happy!I ought to have known, but I didn't know... You're very kind to let me talkto you, ma'am... For it's hard on me, ma'am... It's har-r-r-r-d--"

And I gather that Euphemia so far forgot herself as to let Jane sob outsome of the fullness of her heart on a sympathetic shoulder. My Euphemia, thank Heaven, has never properly grasped the importance of "keeping up herposition. " And since that fit of weeping, much of the accent of bitternesshas gone out of Jane's scrubbing and brush work. 

Indeed, something passed the other day with the butcher-boy--but thatscarcely belongs to this story. However, Jane is young still, and time andchange are at work with her. We all have our sorrows, but I do not believevery much in the existence of sorrows that never heal. 

 II. 

 THE CONE. 

The night was hot and overcast, the sky red-rimmed with the lingeringsunset of midsummer. They sat at the open window, trying to fancy the airwas fresher there. The trees and shrubs of the garden stood stiff anddark; beyond in the roadway a gas-lamp burnt, bright orange against thehazy blue of the evening. Farther were the three lights of the railwaysignal against the lowering sky. The man and woman spoke to one another inlow tones. 

"He does not suspect?" said the man, a little nervously. 

"Not he, " she said peevishly, as though that too irritated her. "Hethinks of nothing but the works and the prices of fuel. He has noimagination, no poetry. "

"None of these men of iron have, " he said sententiously. "They have nohearts. "

"_He_ has not, " she said. She turned her discontented face towardsthe window. The distant sound of a roaring and rushing drew nearer andgrew in volume; the house quivered; one heard the metallic rattle of thetender. As the train passed, there was a glare of light above the cuttingand a driving tumult of smoke; one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight black oblongs--eight trucks--passed across the dim grey of theembankment, and were suddenly extinguished one by one in the throat of thetunnel, which, with the last, seemed to swallow down train, smoke, andsound in one abrupt gulp. 

"This country was all fresh and beautiful once, " he said; "and now--it isGehenna. Down that way--nothing but pot-banks and chimneys belching fireand dust into the face of heaven... But what does it matter? An end comes, an end to all this cruelty... _To-morrow. "_ He spoke the last word ina whisper. 

"_To-morrow, "_ she said, speaking in a whisper too, and still staringout of the window. 

"Dear!" he said, putting his hand on hers. 

She turned with a start, and their eyes searched one another's. Herssoftened to his gaze. "My dear one!" she said, and then: "It seems sostrange--that you should have come into my life like this--to open--" Shepaused. 

"To open?" he said. 

"All this wonderful world"--she hesitated, and spoke still more softly--"this world of _love_ to me. "

Then suddenly the door clicked and closed. They turned their heads, and hestarted violently back. In the shadow of the room stood a great shadowyfigure-silent. They saw the face dimly in the half-light, withunexpressive dark patches under the pent-house brows. Every muscle inRaut's body suddenly became tense. When could the door have opened? Whathad he heard? Had he heard all? What had he seen? A tumult of questions. 

The new-comer's voice came at last, after a pause that seemedinterminable. "Well?" he said. 

"I was afraid I had missed you, Horrocks, " said the man at the window, gripping the window-ledge with his hand. His voice was unsteady. 

The clumsy figure of Horrocks came forward out of the shadow. He made noanswer to Raut's remark. For a moment he stood above them. 

The woman's heart was cold within her. "I told Mr. Raut it was justpossible you might come back, " she said in a voice that never quivered. 

Horrocks, still silent, sat down abruptly in the chair by her littlework-table. His big hands were clenched; one saw now the fire of his eyesunder the shadow of his brows. He was trying to get his breath. His eyeswent from the woman he had trusted to the friend he had trusted, and thenback to the woman. 

By this time and for the moment all three half understood one another. Yet none dared say a word to ease the pent-up things that choked them. 

It was the husband's voice that broke the silence at last. 

"You wanted to see me?" he said to Raut. 

Raut started as he spoke. "I came to see you, " he said, resolved to lie tothe last. 

"Yes, " said Horrocks. 

"You promised, " said Raut, "to show me some fine effects of moonlight andsmoke. "

"I promised to show you some fine effects of moonlight and smoke, "repeated Horrocks in a colourless voice. 

"And I thought I might catch you to-night before you went down to theworks, " proceeded Raut, "and come with you. "

There was another pause. Did the man mean to take the thing coolly? Didhe, after all, know? How long had he been in the room? Yet even at themoment when they heard the door, their attitudes ... Horrocks glanced atthe profile of the woman, shadowy pallid in the half-light. Then heglanced at Raut, and seemed to recover himself suddenly. "Of course, " hesaid, "I promised to show you the works under their proper dramaticconditions. It's odd how I could have forgotten. "

"If I am troubling you--" began Raut. 

Horrocks started again. A new light had suddenly come into the sultrygloom of his eyes. "Not in the least. " he said. 

"Have you been telling Mr. Raut of all these contrasts of flame and shadowyou think so splendid?" said the woman, turning now to her husband forthe first time, her confidence creeping back again, her voice just onehalf-note too high--"that dreadful theory of yours that machinery isbeautiful, and everything else in the world ugly. I thought he would notspare you, Mr. Raut. It's his great theory, his one discovery in art. "

"I am slow to make discoveries, " said Horrocks grimly, damping hersuddenly. "But what I discover ... " He stopped. 

"Well?" she said. 

"Nothing;" and suddenly he rose to his feet. 

"I promised to show you the works, " he said to Raut, and put his big, clumsy hand on his friend's shoulder. "And you are ready to go?"

"Quite, " said Raut, and stood up also. 

There was another pause. Each of them peered through the indistinctness ofthe dusk at the other two. 

Horrocks' hand still rested on Raut's shoulder. Raut half fancied stillthat the incident was trivial after all. But Mrs. Horrocks knew herhusband better, knew that grim quiet in his voice, and the confusion inher mind took a vague shape of physical evil. "Very well, " said Horrocks, and, dropping his hand, turned towards the door. 

"My hat?" Raut looked round in the half-light. 

"That's my work-basket, " said Mrs. Horrocks with a gust of hystericallaughter. Their hands came together on the back of the chair. "Here itis!" he said. She had an impulse to warn him in an undertone, but shecould not frame a word. "Don't go!" and "Beware of him!" struggled in hermind, and the swift moment passed. 

"Got it?" said Horrocks, standing with the door half open. 

Raut stepped towards him. "Better say goodbye to Mrs. Horrocks, " said theironmaster, even more grimly quiet in his tone than before. 

Raut started and turned. "Good-evening, Mrs. Horrocks, " he said, and theirhands touched. 

Horrocks held the door open with a ceremonial politeness unusual in himtowards men. Raut went out, and then, after a wordless look at her, herhusband followed. She stood motionless while Raut's light footfall and herhusband's heavy tread, like bass and treble, passed down the passagetogether. The front door slammed heavily. She went to the window, movingslowly, and stood watching, leaning forward. The two men appeared for amoment at the gateway in the road, passed under the street lamp, and werehidden by the black masses of the shrubbery. The lamplight fell for amoment on their faces, showing only unmeaning pale patches, tellingnothing of what she still feared, and doubted, and craved vainly to know. Then she sank down into a crouching attitude in the big arm-chair, hereyes-wide open and staring out at the red lights from the furnaces thatflickered in the sky. An hour after she was still there, her attitudescarcely changed. 

The oppressive stillness of the evening weighed heavily upon Raut. Theywent side by side down the road in silence, and in silence turned into thecinder-made byway that presently opened out the prospect of the valley. 

A blue haze, half dust, half mist, touched the long valley with mystery. Beyond were Hanley and Etruria, grey and dark masses, outlined thinly bythe rare golden dots of the street lamps, and here and there a gas-litwindow, or the yellow glare of some late-working factory or crowdedpublic-house. Out of the masses, clear and slender against the eveningsky, rose a multitude of tall chimneys, many of them reeking, a fewsmokeless during a season of "play. " Here and there a pallid patch andghostly stunted beehive shapes showed the position of a pot-bank or awheel, black and sharp against the hot lower sky, marked some collierywhere they raise the iridescent coal of the place. Nearer at hand was thebroad stretch of railway, and half-invisible trains shunted--a steadypuffing and rumbling, with every run a ringing concussion and a rhymthicseries of impacts, and a passage of intermittent puffs of white steamacross the further view. And to the left, between the railway and thedark mass of the low hill beyond, dominating the whole view, colossal, inky-black, and crowned with smoke and fitful flames, stood the greatcylinders of the Jeddah Company Blast Furnaces, the central edifices ofthe big ironworks of which Horrocks was the manager. They stood heavy andthreatening, full of an incessant turmoil of flames and seething molteniron, and about the feet of them rattled the rolling-mills, and thesteam-hammer beat heavily and splashed the white iron sparks hither andthither. Even as they looked, a truckful of fuel was shot into one of thegiants, and the red flames gleamed out, and a confusion of smoke and blackdust came boiling upwards towards the sky. 

"Certainly you get some colour with your furnaces, " said Raut, breaking asilence that had become apprehensive. 

Horrocks grunted. He stood with his hands in his pockets, frowning down atthe dim steaming railway and the busy ironworks beyond, frowning as if hewere thinking out some knotty problem. 

Raut glanced at him and away again. "At present your moonlight effect ishardly ripe, " he continued, looking upward; "the moon is still smotheredby the vestiges of daylight. "

Horrocks stared at him with the expression of a man who has suddenlyawakened. "Vestiges of daylight? ... Of course, of course. " He too lookedup at the moon, pale still in the midsummer sky. "Come along, " he saidsuddenly, and gripping Raut's arm in his hand, made a move towards thepath that dropped from them to the railway. 

Raut hung back. Their eyes met and saw a thousand things in a moment thattheir lips came near to say. Horrocks's hand tightened and then relaxed. He let go, and before Raut was aware of it, they were arm in arm, andwalking, one unwillingly enough, down the path. 

"You see the fine effect of the railway signals towards Burslem, " saidHorrocks, suddenly breaking into loquacity, striding fast and tighteningthe grip of his elbow the while--"little green lights and red and whitelights, all against the haze. You have an eye for effect, Raut. It's fine. And look at those furnaces of mine, how they rise upon us as we come downthe hill. That to the right is my pet--seventy feet of him. I packed himmyself, and he's boiled away cheerfully with iron in his guts for fivelong years. I've a particular fancy for _him_. That line of redthere--a lovely bit of warm orange you'd call it, Raut--that's thepuddlers' furnaces, and there, in the hot light, three black figures--didyou see the white splash of the steam-hammer then?--that's the rollingmills. Come along! Clang, clatter, how it goes rattling across the floor!Sheet tin, Raut, --amazing stuff. Glass mirrors are not in it when thatstuff comes from the mill. And, squelch! there goes the hammer again. Comealong!"

He had to stop talking to catch at his breath. His arm twisted into Raut'swith benumbing tightness. He had come striding down the black path towardsthe railway as though he was possessed. Raut had not spoken a word, hadsimply hung back against Horrocks's pull with all his strength. 

"I say, " he said now, laughing nervously, but with an undertone of snarlin his voice, "why on earth are you nipping my arm off, Horrocks, anddragging me along like this?"

At length Horrocks released him. His manner changed again. "Nipping yourarm off?" he said. "Sorry. But it's you taught me the trick of walkingin that friendly way. "

"You haven't learnt the refinements of it yet then, " said Raut, laughingartificially again. "By Jove! I'm black and blue. " Horrocks offered noapology. They stood now near the bottom of the hill, close to the fencethat bordered the railway. The ironworks had grown larger and spread outwith their approach. They looked up to the blast furnaces now instead ofdown; the further view of Etruria and Hanley had dropped out of sight withtheir descent. Before them, by the stile, rose a notice-board, bearing, still dimly visible, the words, "BEWARE OF THE TRAINS, " half hidden bysplashes of coaly mud. 

"Fine effects, " said Horrocks, waving his arm. "Here comes a train. Thepuffs of smoke, the orange glare, the round eye of light in front of it, the melodious rattle. Fine effects! But these furnaces of mine used to befiner, before we shoved cones in their throats, and saved the gas. "

"How?" said Raut. "Cones?"

"Cones, my man, cones. I'll show you one nearer. The flames used to flareout of the open throats, great--what is it?--pillars of cloud by day, redand black smoke, and pillars of fire by night. Now we run it off--inpipes, and burn it to heat the blast, and the top is shut by a cone. You'll be interested in that cone. "

"But every now and then, " said Raut, "you get a burst of fire and smoke upthere. "

"The cone's not fixed, it's hung by a chain from a lever, and balanced byan equipoise. You shall see it nearer. Else, of course, there'd be no wayof getting fuel into the thing. Every now and then the cone dips, and outcomes the flare. "

"I see, " said Raut. He looked over his shoulder. "The moon gets brighter, "he said. 

"Come along, " said Horrocks abruptly, gripping his shoulder again, andmoving him suddenly towards the railway crossing. And then came one ofthose swift incidents, vivid, but so rapid that they leave one doubtfuland reeling. Half-way across, Horrocks's hand suddenly clenched upon himlike a vice, and swung him backward and through a half-turn, so that helooked up the line. And there a chain of lamp-lit carriage windowstelescoped swiftly as it came towards them, and the red and yellow lightsof an engine grew larger and larger, rushing down upon them. As he graspedwhat this meant, he turned his face to Horrocks, and pushed with all hisstrength against the arm that held him back between the rails. Thestruggle did not last a moment. Just as certain as it was that Horrocksheld him there, so certain was it that he had been violently lugged out ofdanger. 

"Out of the way, " said Horrocks with a gasp, as the train came rattlingby, and they stood panting by the gate into the ironworks. 

"I did not see it coming, " said Raut, still, even in spite of his ownapprehensions, trying to keep up an appearance of ordinary intercourse. 

Horrocks answered with a grunt. "The cone, " he said, and then, as one whorecovers himself, "I thought you did not hear. "

"I didn't, " said Raut. 

"I wouldn't have had you run over then for the world, " said Horrocks. 

"For a moment I lost my nerve, " said Raut. 

Horrocks stood for half a minute, then turned abruptly towards theironworks again. "See how fine these great mounds of mine, theseclinker-heaps, look in the night! That truck yonder, up above there! Upit goes, and out-tilts the slag. See the palpitating red stuff go slidingdown the slope. As we get nearer, the heap rises up and cuts the blastfurnaces. See the quiver up above the big one. Not that way! This way, between the heaps. That goes to the puddling furnaces, but I want to showyou the canal first. " He came and took Raut by the elbow, and so they wentalong side by side. Raut answered Horrocks vaguely. What, he askedhimself, had really happened on the line? Was he deluding himself with hisown fancies, or had Horrocks actually held him back in the way of thetrain? Had he just been within an ace of being murdered?

Suppose this slouching, scowling monster _did_ know anything? For aminute or two then Raut was really afraid for his life, but the moodpassed as he reasoned with himself. After all, Horrocks might have heardnothing. At any rate, he had pulled him out of the way in time. His oddmanner might be due to the mere vague jealousy he had shown once before. He was talking now of the ash-heaps and the canal. "Eigh?" said Horrocks. 

"What?" said Raut. "Rather! The haze in the moonlight. Fine!"

"Our canal, " said Horrocks, stopping suddenly. "Our canal by moonlight andfirelight is immense. You've never seen it? Fancy that! You've spent toomany of your evenings philandering up in Newcastle there. I tell you, forreal florid quality----But you shall see. Boiling water ... "

As they came out of the labyrinth of clinker-heaps and mounds of coal andore, the noises of the rolling-mill sprang upon them suddenly, loud, near, and distinct. Three shadowy workmen went by and touched their caps toHorrocks. Their faces were vague in the darkness. Raut felt a futileimpulse to address them, and before he could frame his words they passedinto the shadows. Horrocks pointed to the canal close before them now: aweird-looking place it seemed, in the blood-red reflections of thefurnaces. The hot water that cooled the tuyères came into it, some fiftyyards up--a tumultuous, almost boiling affluent, and the steam rose upfrom the water in silent white wisps and streaks, wrapping damply aboutthem, an incessant succession of ghosts coming up from the black and rededdies, a white uprising that made the head swim. The shining black towerof the larger blast-furnace rose overhead out of the mist, and itstumultuous riot filled their ears. Raut kept away from the edge of thewater, and watched Horrocks. 

"Here it is red, " said Horrocks, "blood-red vapour as red and hot as sin;but yonder there, where the moonlight falls on it, and it drives acrossthe clinker-heaps, it is as white as death. "

Raut turned his head for a moment, and then came back hastily to his watchon Horrocks. "Come along to the rolling-mills, " said Horrocks. Thethreatening hold was not so evident that time, and Raut felt a littlereassured. But all the same, what on earth did Horrocks mean about "whiteas death" and "red as sin"? Coincidence, perhaps?

They went and stood behind the puddlers for a little while, and thenthrough the rolling-mills, where amidst an incessant din the deliberatesteam-hammer beat the juice out of the succulent iron, and black, half-naked Titans rushed the plastic bars, like hot sealing-wax, betweenthe wheels, "Come on, " said Horrocks in Raut's ear; and they went andpeeped through the little glass hole behind the tuyères, and saw thetumbled fire writhing in the pit of the blast-furnace. It left one eyeblinded for a while. Then, with green and blue patches dancing across thedark, they went to the lift by which the trucks of ore and fuel and limewere raised to the top of the big cylinder. 

And out upon the narrow rail that overhung the furnace Raut's doubts cameupon him again. Was it wise to be here? If Horrocks did know--everything!Do what he would, he could not resist a violent trembling. Right underfoot was a sheer depth of seventy feet. It was a dangerous place. Theypushed by a truck of fuel to get to the railing that crowned the thing. The reek of the furnace, a sulphurous vapour streaked with pungentbitterness, seemed to make the distant hillside of Hanley quiver. The moonwas riding out now from among a drift of clouds, half-way up the sky abovethe undulating wooded outlines of Newcastle. The steaming canal ran awayfrom below them under an indistinct bridge, and vanished into the dim hazeof the flat fields towards Burslem. 

"That's the cone I've been telling you of, " shouted Horrocks; "and, belowthat, sixty feet of fire and molten metal, with the air of the blastfrothing through it like gas in soda-water. "

Raut gripped the hand-rail tightly, and stared down at the cone. The heatwas intense. The boiling of the iron and the tumult of the blast made athunderous accompaniment to Horrocks's voice. But the thing had to be gonethrough now. Perhaps, after all... 

"In the middle, " bawled Horrocks, "temperature near a thousand degrees. If_you_ were dropped into it ... Flash into flame like a pinch ofgunpowder in a candle. Put your hand out and feel the heat of his breath. Why, even up here I've seen the rain-water boiling off the trucks. Andthat cone there. It's a damned sight too hot for roasting cakes. The topside of it's three hundred degrees. "

"Three hundred degrees!" said Raut. 

"Three hundred centigrade, mind!" said Horrocks. "It will boil the bloodout of you in no time. "

"Eigh?" said Raut, and turned. 

"Boil the blood out of you in ... No, you don't!"

"Let me go!" screamed Raut. "Let go my arm!"

With one hand he clutched at the hand-rail, then with both. For a momentthe two men stood swaying. Then suddenly, with a violent jerk, Horrockshad twisted him from his hold. He clutched at Horrocks and missed, hisfoot went back into empty air; in mid-air he twisted himself, and thencheek and shoulder and knee struck the hot cone together. 

He clutched the chain by which the cone hung, and the thing sank aninfinitesimal amount as he struck it. A circle of glowing red appearedabout him, and a tongue of flame, released from the chaos within, flickered up towards him. An intense pain assailed him at the knees, andhe could smell the singeing of his hands. He raised himself to his feet, and tried to climb up the chain, and then something struck his head. Blackand shining with the moonlight, the throat of the furnace rose abouthim. 

Horrocks, he saw, stood above him by one of the trucks of fuel on therail. The gesticulating figure was bright and white in the moonlight, andshouting, "Fizzle, you fool! Fizzle, you hunter of women! You hot-bloodedhound! Boil! boil! boil!"

Suddenly he caught up a handful of coal out of the truck, and flung itdeliberately, lump after lump, at Raut. 

"Horrocks!" cried Raut. "Horrocks!"

He clung, crying, to the chain, pulling himself up from the burning of thecone. Each missile Horrocks flung hit him. His clothes charred and glowed, and as he struggled the cone dropped, and a rush of hot, suffocating gaswhooped out and burned round him in a swift breath of flame. 

His human likeness departed from him. When the momentary red had passed, Horrocks saw a charred, blackened figure, its head streaked with blood, still clutching and fumbling with the chain, and writhing in agony--acindery animal, an inhuman, monstrous creature that began a sobbing, intermittent shriek. 

Abruptly at the sight the ironmaster's anger passed. A deadly sicknesscame upon him. The heavy odour of burning flesh came drifting up to hisnostrils. His sanity returned to him. 

"God have mercy upon me!" he cried. "O God! what have I done?"

He knew the thing below him, save that it still moved and felt, wasalready a dead man--that the blood of the poor wretch must be boiling inhis veins. An intense realisation of that agony came to his mind, andovercame every other feeling. For a moment he stood irresolute, and then, turning to the truck, he hastily tilted its contents upon the strugglingthing that had once been a man. The mass fell with a thud, and wentradiating over the cone. With the thud the shriek ended, and a boilingconfusion of smoke, dust, and flame came rushing up towards him. As itpassed, he saw the cone clear again. 

Then he staggered back, and stood trembling, clinging to the rail withboth hands. His lips moved, but no words came to them. 

Down below was the sound of voices and running steps. The clangour ofrolling in the shed ceased abruptly. 

 III. 

 THE STOLEN BACILLUS. 

"This again, " said the Bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under themicroscope, "is well, --a preparation of the Bacillus of cholera--thecholera germ. "

The pale-faced man peered down the microscope. He was evidently notaccustomed to that kind of thing, and held a limp white hand over hisdisengaged eye. "I see very little, " he said. 

"Touch this screw, " said the Bacteriologist; "perhaps the microscope isout of focus for you. Eyes vary so much. Just the fraction of a turn thisway or that. "

"Ah! now I see, " said the visitor. "Not so very much to see after all. Little streaks and shreds of pink. And yet those little particles, thosemere atomies, might multiply and devastate a city! Wonderful!"

He stood up, and releasing the glass slip from the microscope, held it inhis hand towards the window. "Scarcely visible, " he said, scrutinising thepreparation. He hesitated. "Are these--alive? Are they dangerous now?"

"Those have been stained and killed, " said the Bacteriologist. "I wish, for my own part, we could kill and stain every one of them in theuniverse. "

"I suppose, " the pale man said, with a slight smile, 'that you scarcelycare to have such things about you in the living--in the active state?"

"On the contrary, we are obliged to, " said the Bacteriologist. "Here, for instance--" He walked across the room and took up one ofseveral sealed tubes. "Here is the living thing. This is a cultivation ofthe actual living disease bacteria. " He hesitated. "Bottled cholera, so tospeak. "

A slight gleam of satisfaction appeared momentarily in the face of thepale man. "It's a deadly thing to have in your possession, " he said, devouring the little tube with his eyes. The Bacteriologist watched themorbid pleasure in his visitor's expression. This man, who had visited himthat afternoon with a note of introduction from an old friend, interestedhim from the very contrast of their dispositions. The lank black hair anddeep grey eyes, the haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful yetkeen interest of his visitor were a novel change from the phlegmaticdeliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with whom theBacteriologist chiefly associated. It was perhaps natural, with a hearerevidently so impressionable to the lethal nature of; his topic, to takethe most effective aspect of the matter. 

He held the tube in his hand thoughtfully. "Yes, here is the pestilenceimprisoned. Only break such a little tube as this into a supply ofdrinking-water, say to these minute particles of life that one must needsstain and examine with the highest powers of the microscope even to see, and that one can neither smell nor taste--say to them, 'Go forth, increaseand multiply, and replenish the cisterns, ' and death--mysterious, untraceable death, death swift and terrible, death full of pain andindignity--would be released upon this city, and go hither and thitherseeking his victims. Here he would take the husband from the wife, herethe child from its mother, here the statesman from his duty, and here thetoiler from his trouble. He would follow the water-mains, creeping alongstreets, picking out and punishing a house here and a house there wherethey did not boil their drinking-water, creeping into the wells of themineral water makers, getting washed into salad, and lying dormant inices. He would wait ready to be drunk in the horse-troughs, and by unwarychildren in the public fountains. He would soak into the soil, to reappearin springs and wells at a thousand unexpected places. Once start him atthe water supply, and before we could ring him in, and catch him again, he would have decimated the metropolis. "

He stopped abruptly. He had been told rhetoric was his weakness. 

"But he is quite safe here, you know--quite safe. "

The pale-faced man nodded. His eyes shone. He cleared his throat. "TheseAnarchist--rascals, " said he, "are fools, blind fools--to use bombs whenthis kind of thing is attainable. I think----"

A gentle rap, a mere light touch of the finger-nails, was heard at thedoor. The Bacteriologist opened if. "Just a minute, dear, " whispered hiswife. 

When he re-entered the laboratory his visitor was looking at his watch. "Ihad no idea I had wasted an hour of your time, " he said. "Twelve minutesto four. I ought to have left here by half-past three. But your thingswere really too interesting. No, positively I cannot stop a moment longer. I have an engagement at four. "

He passed out of the room reiterating his thanks, and the Bacteriologistaccompanied him to the door, and then returned thoughtfully along thepassage to his laboratory. He was musing on the ethnology of his visitor. Certainly the man was not a Teutonic type nor a common Latin one. "Amorbid product, anyhow, I am afraid, " said the Bacteriologist to himself. "How he gloated over those cultivations of disease germs!" A disturbingthought struck him. He turned to the bench by the vapour bath, and thenvery quickly to his writing-table. Then he felt hastily in his pockets andthen rushed to the door. "I may have put it down on the hall table, " hesaid. 

"Minnie!" he shouted hoarsely in the hall. 

"Yes, dear, " came a remote voice. 

"Had I anything in my hand when I spoke to you, dear, just now?"

Pause. 

"Nothing, dear, because I remember----"

"Blue ruin!" cried the Bacteriologist, and incontinently ran to the frontdoor and down the steps of his house to the street. 

Minnie, hearing the door slam violently, ran in alarm to the window. Downthe street a slender man was getting into a cab. The Bacteriologist, hatless, and in his carpet slippers, was running and gesticulating wildlytowards this group. One slipper came off, but he did not wait for it. "Hehas gone _mad_!" said Minnie; "it's that horrid science of his"; and, opening the window, would have called after him. The slender man, suddenlyglancing round, seemed struck with the same idea of mental disorder. Hepointed hastily to the Bacteriologist, said something to the cabman, theapron of the cab slammed, the whip swished, the horse's feet clattered, and in a moment cab and Bacteriologist hotly in pursuit, had receded upthe vista of the roadway and disappeared round the corner. 

Minnie remained straining out of the window for a minute. Then she drewher head back into the room again. She was dumbfounded. "Of course he iseccentric, " she meditated. "But running about London--in the height of theseason, too--in his socks!" A happy thought struck her. She hastily puther bonnet on, seized his shoes, went into the hall, took down his hat andlight overcoat from the pegs, emerged upon the doorstep, and hailed a cabthat opportunely crawled by. "Drive me up the road and round HavelockCrescent, and see if we can find a gentleman running about in a velveteencoat and no hat. "

"Velveteen coat, ma'am, and no 'at. Very good, ma'am. " And the cabmanwhipped up at once in the most matter-of-fact way, as if he drove to thisaddress every day in his life. 

Some few minutes later the little group of cabmen and loafers thatcollects round the cabman's shelter at Haverstock Hill were startled bythe passing of a cab with a ginger-coloured screw of a horse, drivenfuriously. 

They were silent as it went by, and then as it receded--"That's 'Arry'Icks. Wot's _he_ got?" said the stout gentleman known as OldTootles. 

"He's a-using his whip, he is, _to_ rights, " said the ostler boy. 

"Hullo!" said poor old Tommy Byles; "here's another bloomin' loonatic. Blowed if there ain't. "

"It's old George, " said Old Tootles, "and he's drivin' a loonatic, _as_ you say. Ain't he a-clawin' out of the keb? Wonder if he's after'Arry 'Icks?"

The group round the cabman's shelter became animated. Chorus: "Go it, George!" "It's a race. " "You'll ketch 'em!" "Whip up!"

"She's a goer, she is!" said the ostler boy. 

"Strike me giddy!" cried Old Tootles. "Here! _I'm_ a-goin' to beginin a minute. Here's another comin'. If all the cabs in Hampstead ain'tgone mad this morning!"

"It's a fieldmale this time, " said the ostler boy. 

"She's a-followin' _him_, " said Old Tootles. "Usually the other wayabout. "

"What's she got in her 'and?"

"Looks like a 'igh 'at. "

"What a bloomin' lark it is! Three to one on old George, " said the ostlerboy. "Nexst!"

Minnie went by in a perfect roar of applause. She did not like it, but shefelt that she was doing her duty, and whirled on down Haverstock Hill andCamden Town High Street with her eyes ever intent on the animated backview of old George, who was driving her vagrant husband soincomprehensibly away from her. 

The man in the foremost cab sat crouched in the corner, his arms tightlyfolded, and the little tube that contained such vast possibilities ofdestruction gripped in his hand. His mood was a singular mixture of fearand exultation. Chiefly he was afraid of being caught before he couldaccomplish his purpose, but behind this was a vaguer but larger fear ofthe awfulness of his crime. But his exultation far exceeded his fear. NoAnarchist before him had ever approached this conception of his. Ravachol, Vaillant, all those distinguished persons whose fame he had envieddwindled into insignificance beside him. He had only to make sure of thewater supply, and break the little tube into a reservoir. How brilliantlyhe had planned it, forged the letter of introduction and got into thelaboratory, and how brilliantly he had seized his opportunity! The worldshould hear of him at last. All those people who had sneered at him, neglected him, preferred other people to him, found his companyundesirable, should consider him at last. Death, death, death! They hadalways treated him as a man of no importance. All the world had been in aconspiracy to keep him under. He would teach them yet what it is toisolate a man. What was this familiar street? Great Saint Andrew's Street, of course! How fared the chase? He craned out of the cab. TheBacteriologist was scarcely fifty yards behind. That was bad. He would becaught and stopped yet. He felt in his pocket for money, and found half asovereign. This he thrust up through the trap in the top of the cab intothe man's face. "More, " he shouted, "if only we get away. "

The money was snatched out of his hand. "Right you are, " said the cabman, and the trap slammed, and the lash lay along the glistening side of thehorse. The cab swayed, and the Anarchist, half-standing under the trap, put the hand containing the little glass tube upon the apron to preservehis balance. He felt the brittle thing crack, and the broken half of itrang upon the floor of the cab. He fell back into the seat with a curse, and stared dismally at the two or three drops of moisture on the apron. 

He shuddered. 

"Well, I suppose I shall be the first. _Phew!_ Anyhow, I shall be aMartyr. That's something. But it is a filthy death, nevertheless. I wonderif it hurts as much as they say. "

Presently a thought occurred to him--he groped between his feet. A littledrop was still in the broken end of the tube, and he drank that to makesure. It was better to make sure. At any rate, he would not fail. 

Then it dawned upon him that there was no further need to escape theBacteriologist. In Wellington Street he told the cabman to stop, and gotout. He slipped on the step, and his head felt queer. It was rapid stuff, this cholera poison. He waved his cabman out of existence, so to speak, and stood on the pavement with his arms folded upon his breast awaitingthe arrival of the Bacteriologist. There was something tragic in his pose. The sense of imminent death gave him a certain dignity. He greeted hispursuer with a defiant laugh. 

"Vive l'Anarchie! You are too late, my friend, I have drunk it. Thecholera is abroad!"

The Bacteriologist from his cab beamed curiously at him through hisspectacles. "You have drunk it! An Anarchist! I see now. " He was about tosay something more, and then checked himself. A smile hung in the cornerof his mouth. He opened the apron of his cab as if to descend, at whichthe Anarchist waved him a dramatic farewell and strode off towardsWaterloo Bridge, carefully jostling his infected body against as manypeople as possible. The Bacteriologist was so preoccupied with the visionof him that he scarcely manifested the slightest surprise at theappearance of Minnie upon the pavement with his hat and shoes andovercoat. "Very good of you to bring my things, " he said, and remainedlost in contemplation of the receding figure of the Anarchist. 

"You had better get in, " he said, still staring. Minnie felt absolutelyconvinced now that he was mad, and directed the cabman home on her ownresponsibility. "Put on my shoes? Certainly, dear, " said he, as the cabbegan to turn, and hid the strutting black figure, now small in thedistance, from his eyes. Then suddenly something grotesque struck him, andhe laughed. Then he remarked, "It is really very serious, though. 

"You see, that man came to my house to see me, and he is an Anarchist. No--don't faint, or I cannot possibly tell you the rest. And I wanted toastonish him, not knowing he was an Anarchist, and took up a cultivationof that new species of Bacterium I was telling you of that infest, and Ithink cause, the blue patches upon various monkeys; and, like a fool, Isaid it was Asiatic cholera. And he ran away with it to poison the waterof London, and he certainly might have made things look blue for thiscivilised city. And now he has swallowed it. Of course, I cannot say whatwill happen, but you know it turned that kitten blue, and the threepuppies--in patches, and the sparrow--bright blue. But the bother is, Ishall have all the trouble and expense of preparing some more. 

"Put on my coat on this hot day! Why? Because we might meet Mrs. Jabber. My dear, Mrs. Jabber is not a draught. But why should I wear a coat on ahot day because of Mrs. -----. Oh! _very_ well. "

 IV. 

 THE FLOWERING OF THE STRANGE ORCHID. 

The buying of orchids always has in it a certain speculative flavour. Youhave before you the brown shrivelled lump of tissue, and for the rest youmust trust your judgment, or the auctioneer, or your good luck, as yourtaste may incline. The plant may be moribund or dead, or it may be just arespectable purchase, fair value for your money, or perhaps--for the thinghas happened again and again--there slowly unfolds before the delightedeyes of the happy purchaser, day after day, some new variety, some novelrichness, a strange twist of the labellum, or some subtler colouration orunexpected mimicry. Pride, beauty, and profit blossom together on onedelicate green spike, and, it may be, even immortality. For the newmiracle of nature may stand in need of a new specific name, and what soconvenient as that of its discoverer? "John-smithia"! There have beenworse names. 

It was perhaps the hope of some such happy discovery that made WinterWedderburn such a frequent attendant at these sales--that hope, and also, maybe, the fact that he had nothing else of the slightest interest to doin the world. He was a shy, lonely, rather ineffectual man, provided withjust enough income to keep off the spur of necessity, and not enoughnervous energy to make him seek any exacting employments. He might havecollected stamps or coins, or translated Horace, or bound books, orinvented new species of diatoms. But, as it happened, he grew orchids, andhad one ambitious little hothouse. 

"I have a fancy, " he said over his coffee, "that something is going tohappen to me to-day. " He spoke--as he moved and thought--slowly. 

"Oh, don't say _that_!" said his housekeeper--who was also his remotecousin. For "something happening" was a euphemism that meant only onething to her. 

"You misunderstand me. I mean nothing unpleasant... Though what I do mean Iscarcely know. 

"To-day, " he continued, after a pause, "Peters' are going to sell a batchof plants from the Andamans and the Indies. I shall go up and see whatthey have. It may be I shall buy something good unawares. That may be it. "

He passed his cup for his second cupful of coffee. 

"Are these the things collected by that poor young fellow you told me ofthe other day?" asked his cousin, as she filled his cup. 

"Yes, " he said, and became meditative over a piece of toast. 

"Nothing ever does happen to me, " he remarked presently, beginning tothink aloud. "I wonder why? Things enough happen to other people. There isHarvey. Only the other week; on Monday he picked up sixpence, on Wednesdayhis chicks all had the staggers, on Friday his cousin came home fromAustralia, and on Saturday he broke his ankle. What a whirl ofexcitement!--compared to me. "

"I think I would rather be without so much excitement, " said hishousekeeper. "It can't be good for you. "

"I suppose it's troublesome. Still ... You see, nothing ever happens tome. When I was a little boy I never had accidents. I never fell in love asI grew up. Never married... I wonder how it feels to have somethinghappen to you, something really remarkable. 

"That orchid-collector was only thirty-six--twenty years younger thanmyself--when he died. And he had been married twice and divorced once; hehad had malarial fever four times, and once he broke his thigh. He killeda Malay once, and once he was wounded by a poisoned dart. And in the endhe was killed by jungle-leeches. It must have all been very troublesome, but then it must have been very interesting, you know--except, perhaps, the leeches. "

"I am sure it was not good for him, " said the lady with conviction. 

"Perhaps not. " And then Wedderburn looked at his watch. "Twenty-threeminutes past eight. I am going up by the quarter to twelve train, so thatthere is plenty of time. I think I shall wear my alpaca jacket--it isquite warm enough--and my grey felt hat and brown shoes. I suppose--"

He glanced out of the window at the serene sky and sunlit garden, and thennervously at his cousin's face. 

"I think you had better take an umbrella if you are going to London, " shesaid in a voice that admitted of no denial. "There's all between here andthe station coming back. "

When he returned he was in a state of mild excitement. He had made apurchase. It was rare that he could make up his mind quickly enough tobuy, but this time he had done so. 

"There are Vandas, " he said, "and a Dendrobe and some Palaeonophis. " Hesurveyed his purchases lovingly as he consumed his soup. They were laidout on the spotless tablecloth before him, and he was telling his cousinall about them as he slowly meandered through his dinner. It was hiscustom to live all his visits to London over again in the evening for herand his own entertainment. 

"I knew something would happen to-day. And I have bought all these. Someof them--some of them--I feel sure, do you know, that some of them will beremarkable. I don't know how it is, but I feel just as sure as if some onehad told me that some of these will turn out remarkable. 

"That one "--he pointed to a shrivelled rhizome--"was not identified. Itmay be a Palaeonophis--or it may not. It may be a new species, or even anew genus. And it was the last that poor Batten ever collected. "

"I don't like the look of it, " said his housekeeper. "It's such an uglyshape. "

"To me it scarcely seems to have a shape. "

"I don't like those things that stick out, " said his housekeeper. 

"It shall be put away in a pot to-morrow. "

"It looks, " said the housekeeper, "like a spider shamming dead. "

Wedderburn smiled and surveyed the root with his head on one side. "It iscertainly not a pretty lump of stuff. But you can never judge of thesethings from their dry appearance. It may turn out to be a very beautifulorchid indeed. How busy I shall be to-morrow! I must see to-night justexactly what to do with these things, and to-morrow I shall set to work. "

"They found poor Batten lying dead, or dying, in a mangrove swamp--Iforget which, " he began again presently, "with one of these very orchidscrushed up under his body. He had been unwell for some days with some kindof native fever, and I suppose he fainted. These mangrove swamps are veryunwholesome. Every drop of blood, they say, was taken out of him by thejungle-leeches. It may be that very plant that cost him his life toobtain. "

"I think none the better of it for that. "

"Men must work though women may weep, " said Wedderburn with profoundgravity. 

"Fancy dying away from every comfort in a nasty swamp! Fancy being ill offever with nothing to take but chlorodyne and quinine--if men were left tothemselves they would live on chlorodyne and quinine--and no one round youbut horrible natives! They say the Andaman islanders are most disgustingwretches--and, anyhow, they can scarcely make good nurses, not having thenecessary training. And just for people in England to have orchids!"

"I don't suppose it was comfortable, but some men seem to enjoy that kindof thing, " said Wedderburn. "Anyhow, the natives of his party weresufficiently civilised to take care of all his collection until hiscolleague, who was an ornithologist, came back again from the interior;though they could not tell the species of the orchid, and had let itwither. And it makes these things more interesting. "

"It makes them disgusting. I should be afraid of some of the malariaclinging to them. And just think, there has been a dead body lying acrossthat ugly thing! I never thought of that before. There! I declare I cannoteat another mouthful of dinner. "

"I will take them off the table if you like, and put them in thewindow-seat. I can see them just as well there. "

The next few days he was indeed singularly busy in his steamy littlehothouse, fussing about with charcoal, lumps of teak, moss, and all theother mysteries of the orchid cultivator. He considered he was having awonderfully eventful time. In the evening he would talk about these neworchids to his friends, and over and over again he reverted to hisexpectation of something strange. 

Several of the Vandas and the Dendrobium died under his care, butpresently the strange orchid began to show signs of life. He wasdelighted, and took his housekeeper right away from jam-making to see itat once, directly he made the discovery. 

"That is a bud, " he said, "and presently there will be a lot of leavesthere, and those little things coming out here are aerial rootlets. "

"They look to me like little white fingers poking out of the brown, " saidhis housekeeper. "I don't like them. "

"Why not?"

"I don't know. They look like fingers trying to get at you. I can't helpmy likes and dislikes. "

"I don't know for certain, but I don't _think_ there are any orchidsI know that have aerial rootlets quite like that. It may be my fancy, ofcourse. You see they are a little flattened at the ends. "

"I don't like 'em, " said his housekeeper, suddenly shivering and turningaway. "I know it's very silly of me--and I'm very sorry, particularly asyou like the thing so much. But I can't help thinking of that corpse. "

"But it may not be that particular plant. That was merely a guess ofmine. "

His housekeeper shrugged her shoulders. "Anyhow I don't like it, " shesaid. 

Wedderburn felt a little hurt at her dislike to the plant. But that didnot prevent his talking to her about orchids generally, and this orchid inparticular, whenever he felt inclined. 

"There are such queer things about orchids, " he said one day; "suchpossibilities of surprises. You know, Darwin studied their fertilisation, and showed that the whole structure of an ordinary orchid flower wascontrived in order that moths might carry the pollen from plant to plant. Well, it seems that there are lots of orchids known the flower of whichcannot possibly be used for fertilisation in that way. Some of theCypripediums, for instance; there are no insects known that can possiblyfertilise them, and some of them have never been found with seed. "

"But how do they form new plants?"

"By runners and tubers, and that kind of outgrowth. That is easilyexplained. The puzzle is, what are the flowers for?

"Very likely, " he added, "_my_ orchid may be something extraordinaryin that way. If so I shall study it. I have often thought of makingresearches as Darwin did. But hitherto I have not found the time, orsomething else has happened to prevent it. The leaves are beginning tounfold now. I do wish you would come and see them!"

But she said that the orchid-house was so hot it gave her the headache. She had seen the plant once again, and the aerial rootlets, which were nowsome of them more than a foot long, had unfortunately reminded her oftentacles reaching out after something; and they got into her dreams, growing after her with incredible rapidity. So that she had settled to herentire satisfaction that she would not see that plant again, andWedderburn had to admire its leaves alone. They were of the ordinary broadform, and a deep glossy green, with splashes and dots of deep red towardsthe base He knew of no other leaves quite like them. The plant was placedon a low bench near the thermometer, and close by was a simple arrangementby which a tap dripped on the hot-water pipes and kept the air steamy. Andhe spent his afternoons now with some regularity meditating on theapproaching flowering of this strange plant. 

And at last the great thing happened. Directly he entered the little glasshouse he knew that the spike had burst out, although his great_Paloeonophis Lowii_ hid the corner where his new darling stood. There was a new odour in the air, a rich, intensely sweet scent, thatoverpowered every other in that crowded, steaming little greenhouse. 

Directly he noticed this he hurried down to the strange orchid. And, behold! the trailing green spikes bore now three great splashes ofblossom, from which this overpowering sweetness proceeded. He stoppedbefore them in an ecstasy of admiration. 

The flowers were white, with streaks of golden orange upon the petals; theheavy labellum was coiled into an intricate projection, and a wonderfulbluish purple mingled there with the gold. He could see at once that thegenus was altogether a new one. And the insufferable scent! How hot theplace was! The blossoms swam before his eyes. 

He would see if the temperature was right. He made a step towards thethermometer. Suddenly everything appeared unsteady. The bricks on thefloor were dancing up and down. Then the white blossoms, the green leavesbehind them, the whole greenhouse, seemed to sweep sideways, and then in acurve upward. 

 * * * * *

At half-past four his cousin made the tea, according to their invariablecustom. But Wedderburn did not come in for his tea. 

"He is worshipping that horrid orchid, " she told herself, and waited tenminutes. "His watch must have stopped. I will go and call him. "

She went straight to the hothouse, and, opening the door, called his name. There was no reply. She noticed that the air was very close, and loadedwith an intense perfume. Then she saw something lying on the bricksbetween the hot-water pipes. 

For a minute, perhaps, she stood motionless. 

He was lying, face upward, at the foot of the strange orchid. Thetentacle-like aerial rootlets no longer swayed freely in the air, but werecrowded together, a tangle of grey ropes, and stretched tight, with theirends closely applied to his chin and neck and hands. 

She did not understand. Then she saw from under one of the exultanttentacles upon his cheek there trickled a little thread of blood. 

With an inarticulate cry she ran towards him, and tried to pull him awayfrom the leech-like suckers. She snapped two of these tentacles, and theirsap dripped red. 

Then the overpowering scent of the blossom began to make her head reel. How they clung to him! She tore at the tough ropes, and he and the whiteinflorescence swam about her. She felt she was fainting, knew she mustnot. She left him and hastily opened the nearest door, and, after she hadpanted for a moment in the fresh air, she had a brilliant inspiration. Shecaught up a flower-pot and smashed in the windows at the end of thegreenhouse. Then she re-entered. She tugged now with renewed strength atWedderburn's motionless body, and brought the strange orchid crashing tothe floor. It still clung with the grimmest tenacity to its victim. In afrenzy, she lugged it and him into the open air. 

Then she thought of tearing through the sucker rootlets one by one, and inanother minute she had released him and was dragging him away from thehorror. 

He was white and bleeding from a dozen circular patches. 

The odd-job man was coming up the garden, amazed at the smashing of glass, and saw her emerge, hauling the inanimate body with red-stained hands. Fora moment he thought impossible things. 

"Bring some water!" she cried, and her voice dispelled his fancies. When, with unnatural alacrity, he returned with the water, he found her weepingwith excitement, and with Wedderburn's head upon her knee, wiping theblood from his face. 

"What's the matter?" said Wedderburn, opening his eyes feebly, and closingthem again at once. 

"Go and tell Annie to come out here to me, and then go for Dr. Haddon atonce, " she said to the odd-job man so soon as he brought the water; andadded, seeing he hesitated, "I will tell you all about it when you comeback. "

Presently Wedderburn opened his eyes again, and, seeing that he wastroubled by the puzzle of his position, she explained to him, "You faintedin the hothouse. "

"And the orchid?"

"I will see to that, " she said. 

Wedderburn had lost a good deal of blood, but beyond that he had sufferedno very great injury. They gave him brandy mixed with some pink extract ofmeat, and carried him upstairs to bed. His housekeeper told her incrediblestory in fragments to Dr. Haddon. "Come to the orchid-house and see, " shesaid. 

The cold outer air was blowing in through the open door, and the sicklyperfume was almost dispelled. Most of the torn aerial rootlets lay alreadywithered amidst a number of dark stains upon the bricks. The stem of theinflorescence was broken by the fall of the plant, and the flowers weregrowing limp and brown at the edges of the petals. The doctor stoopedtowards it, then saw that one of the aerial rootlets still stirred feebly, and hesitated. 

The next morning the strange orchid still lay there, black now andputrescent. The door banged intermittently in the morning breeze, and allthe array of Wedderburn's orchids was shrivelled and prostrate. ButWedderburn himself was bright and garrulous upstairs in the glory of hisstrange adventure. 

 V. 

 IN THE AVU OBSERVATORY. 

The observatory at Avu, in Borneo, stands on the spur of the mountain. Tothe north rises the old crater, black at night against the unfathomableblue of the sky. From the little circular building, with its mushroomdome, the slopes plunge steeply downward into the black mysteries of thetropical forest beneath. The little house in which the observer and hisassistant live is about fifty yards from the observatory, and beyond thisare the huts of their native attendants. 

Thaddy, the chief observer, was down with a slight fever. His assistant, Woodhouse, paused for a moment in silent contemplation of the tropicalnight before commencing his solitary vigil. The night was very still. Nowand then voices and laughter came from the native huts, or the cry of somestrange animal was heard from the midst of the mystery of the forest. Nocturnal insects appeared in ghostly fashion out of the darkness, andfluttered round his light. He thought, perhaps, of all the possibilitiesof discovery that still lay in the black tangle beneath him; for to thenaturalist the virgin forests of Borneo are still a wonderland full ofstrange questions and half-suspected discoveries. Woodhouse carried asmall lantern in his hand, and its yellow glow contrasted vividly with theinfinite series of tints between lavender-blue and black in which thelandscape was painted. His hands and face were smeared with ointmentagainst the attacks of the mosquitoes. 

Even in these days of celestial photography, work done in a purelytemporary erection, and with only the most primitive appliances inaddition to the telescope, still involves a very large amount of crampedand motionless watching. He sighed as he thought of the physical fatiguesbefore him, stretched himself, and entered the observatory. 

The reader is probably familiar with the structure of an ordinaryastronomical observatory. The building is usually cylindrical in shape, with a very light hemispherical roof capable of being turned round fromthe interior. The telescope is supported upon a stone pillar in thecentre, and a clockwork arrangement compensates for the earth's rotation, and allows a star once found to be continuously observed. Besides this, there is a compact tracery of wheels and screws about its point ofsupport, by which the astronomer adjusts it. There is, of course, a slitin the movable roof which follows the eye of the telescope in its surveyof the heavens. The observer sits or lies on a sloping wooden arrangement, which he can wheel to any part of the observatory as the position of thetelescope may require. Within it is advisable to have things as dark aspossible, in order to enhance the brilliance of the stars observed. 

The lantern flared as Woodhouse entered his circular den, and the generaldarkness fled into black shadows behind the big machine, from which itpresently seemed to creep back over the whole place again as the lightwaned. The slit was a profound transparent blue, in which six stars shonewith tropical brilliance, and their light lay, a pallid gleam, along theblack tube of the instrument. Woodhouse shifted the roof, and thenproceeding to the telescope, turned first one wheel and then another, thegreat cylinder slowly swinging into a new position. Then he glancedthrough the finder, the little companion telescope, moved the roof alittle more, made some further adjustments, and set the clockwork inmotion. He took off his jacket, for the night was very hot, and pushedinto position the uncomfortable seat to which he was condemned for thenext four hours. Then with a sigh he resigned himself to his watch uponthe mysteries of space. 

There was no sound now in the observatory, and the lantern waned steadily. Outside there was the occasional cry of some animal in alarm or pain, orcalling to its mate, and the intermittent sounds of the Malay and Dyakservants. Presently one of the men began a queer chanting song, in whichthe others joined at intervals. After this it would seem that they turnedin for the night, for no further sound came from their direction, and thewhispering stillness became more and more profound. 

The clockwork ticked steadily. The shrill hum of a mosquito explored theplace and grew shriller in indignation at Woodhouse's ointment. Then thelantern went out and all the observatory was black. 

Woodhouse shifted his position presently, when the slow movement of thetelescope had carried it beyond the limits of his comfort. 

He was watching a little group of stars in the Milky Way, in one of whichhis chief had seen or fancied a remarkable colour variability. It was nota part of the regular work for which the establishment existed, and forthat reason perhaps Woodhouse was deeply interested. He must haveforgotten things terrestrial. All his attention was concentrated upon thegreat blue circle of the telescope field--a circle powdered, so it seemed, with an innumerable multitude of stars, and all luminous against theblackness of its setting. As he watched he seemed to himself to becomeincorporeal, as if he too were floating in the ether of space. Infinitelyremote was the faint red spot he was observing. 

Suddenly the stars were blotted out. A flash of blackness passed, and theywere visible again. 

"Queer, " said Woodhouse. "Must have been a bird. "

The thing happened again, and immediately after the great tube shivered asthough it had been struck. Then the dome of the observatory resounded witha series of thundering blows. The stars seemed to sweep aside as thetelescope--which had been unclamped--swung round and away from the slit inthe roof. 

"Great Scott!" cried Woodhouse. "What's this?"

Some huge vague black shape, with a flapping something like a wing, seemedto be struggling in the aperture of the roof. In another moment the slitwas clear again, and the luminous haze of the Milky Way shone warm andbright. 

The interior of the roof was perfectly black, and only a scraping soundmarked the whereabouts of the unknown creature. 

Woodhouse had scrambled from the seat to his feet. He was tremblingviolently and in a perspiration with the suddenness of the occurrence. Wasthe thing, whatever it was, inside or out? It was big, whatever else itmight be. Something shot across the skylight, and the telescope swayed. Hestarted violently and put his arm up. It was in the observatory, then, with him. It was clinging to the roof apparently. What the devil was it?Could it see him?

He stood for perhaps a minute in a state of stupefaction. The beast, whatever it was, clawed at the interior of the dome, and then somethingflapped almost into his face, and he saw the momentary gleam of starlighton a skin like oiled leather. His water-bottle was knocked off his littletable with a smash. 

The sense of some strange bird-creature hovering a few yards from his facein the darkness was indescribably unpleasant to Woodhouse. As his thoughtreturned he concluded that it must be some night-bird or large bat. At anyrisk he would see what it was, and pulling a match from his pocket, hetried to strike it on the telescope seat. There was a smoking streak ofphosphorescent light, the match flared for a moment, and he saw a vastwing sweeping towards him, a gleam of grey-brown fur, and then he wasstruck in the face and the match knocked out of his hand. The blow wasaimed at his temple, and a claw tore sideways down to his cheek. He reeledand fell, and he heard the extinguished lantern smash. Another blowfollowed as he fell. He was partly stunned, he felt his own warm bloodstream out upon his face. Instinctively he felt his eyes had been struckat, and, turning over on his face to save them, tried to crawl under theprotection of the telescope. 

He was struck again upon the back, and he heard his jacket rip, and thenthe thing hit the roof of the observatory. He edged as far as he couldbetween the wooden seat and the eyepiece of the instrument, and turned hisbody round so that it was chiefly his feet that were exposed. With thesehe could at least kick. He was still in a mystified state. The strangebeast banged about in the darkness, and presently clung to the telescope, making it sway and the gear rattle. Once it flapped near him, and hekicked out madly and felt a soft body with his feet. He was horriblyscared now. It must be a big thing to swing the telescope like that. Hesaw for a moment the outline of a head black against the starlight, withsharply-pointed upstanding ears and a crest between them. It seemed to himto be as big as a mastiff's. Then he began to bawl out as loudly as hecould for help. 

At that the thing came down upon him again. As it did so his hand touchedsomething beside him on the floor. He kicked out, and the next moment hisankle was gripped and held by a row of keen teeth. He yelled again, andtried to free his leg by kicking with the other. Then he realised he hadthe broken water-bottle at his hand, and, snatching it, he struggled intoa sitting posture, and feeling in the darkness towards his foot, gripped avelvety ear, like the ear of a big cat. He had seized the water-bottle byits neck and brought it down with a shivering crash upon the head of thestrange beast. He repeated the blow, and then stabbed and jabbed with thejagged end of it, in the darkness, where he judged the face might be. 

The small teeth relaxed their hold, and at once Woodhouse pulled his legfree and kicked hard. He felt the sickening feel of fur and bone givingunder his boot. There was a tearing bite at his arm, and he struck over itat the face, as he judged, and hit damp fur. 

There was a pause; then he heard the sound of claws; and the dragging of aheavy body away from him over the observatory floor. Then there wassilence, broken only by his own sobbing breathing, and a sound likelicking. Everything was black except the parallelogram of the blueskylight with the luminous dust of stars, against which the end of thetelescope now appeared in silhouette. He waited, as it seemed, aninterminable time. 

Was the thing coming on again? He felt in his trouser-pocket for somematches, and found one remaining. He tried to strike this, but the floorwas wet, and it spat and went out. He cursed. He could not see where thedoor was situated. In his struggle he had quite lost his bearings. Thestrange beast, disturbed by the splutter of the match, began to moveagain. "Time!" called Woodhouse, with a sudden gleam of mirth, but thething was not coming at him again. He must have hurt it, he thought, withthe broken bottle. He felt a dull pain in his ankle. Probably he wasbleeding there. He wondered if it would support him if he tried to standup. The night outside was very still. There was no sound of any onemoving. The sleepy fools had not heard those wings battering upon thedome, nor his shouts. It was no good wasting strength in shouting. Themonster flapped its wings and startled him into a defensive attitude. Hehit his elbow against the seat, and it fell over with a crash. He cursedthis, and then he cursed the darkness. 

Suddenly the oblong patch of starlight seemed to sway to and fro. Was hegoing to faint? It would never do to faint. He clenched his fists and sethis teeth to hold himself together. Where had the door got to? It occurredto him he could get his bearings by the stars visible through theskylight. The patch of stars he saw was in Sagittarius and south-eastward;the door was north--or was it north by west? He tried to think. If hecould get the door open he might retreat. It might be the thing waswounded. The suspense was beastly. "Look here!" he said, "if you don'tcome on, I shall come at you. "

Then the thing began clambering up the side of the observatory, and he sawits black outline gradually blot out the skylight. Was it in retreat? Heforgot about the door, and watched as the dome shifted and creaked. Somehow he did not feel very frightened or excited now. He felt a curioussinking sensation inside him. The sharply-defined patch of light, with theblack form moving across it, seemed to be growing smaller and smaller. That was curious. He began to feel very thirsty, and yet he did not feelinclined to get anything to drink. He seemed to be sliding down a longfunnel. 

He felt a burning sensation in his throat, and then he perceived it wasbroad daylight, and that one of the Dyak servants was looking at him witha curious expression. Then there was the top of Thaddy's face upside down. Funny fellow, Thaddy, to go about like that! Then he grasped the situationbetter, and perceived that his head was on Thaddy's knee, and Thaddy wasgiving him brandy. And then he saw the eyepiece of the telescope with alot of red smears on it. He began to remember. 

"You've made this observatory in a pretty mess, " said Thaddy. 

The Dyak boy was beating up an egg in brandy. Woodhouse took this and satup. He felt a sharp twinge of pain. His ankle was tied up, so were hisarm and the side of his face. The smashed glass, red-stained, lay aboutthe floor, the telescope seat was overturned, and by the opposite wall wasa dark pool. The door was open, and he saw the grey summit of the mountainagainst a brilliant background of blue sky. 

"Pah!" said Woodhouse. "Who's been killing calves here? Take me out ofit. "

Then he remembered the Thing, and the fight he had had with it. 

"What _was_ it?" he said to Thaddy--"the Thing I fought with?". 

"_You_ know that best, " said Thaddy. "But, anyhow, don't worryyourself now about it. Have some more to drink. "

Thaddy, however, was curious enough, and it was a hard struggle betweenduty and inclination to keep Woodhouse quiet until he was decently putaway in bed, and had slept upon the copious dose of meat extract Thaddyconsidered advisable. They then talked it over together. 

"It was, " said Woodhouse, "more like a big bat than anything else in theworld. It had sharp, short ears, and soft fur, and its wings wereleathery. Its teeth were little but devilish sharp, and its jaw could nothave been very strong or else it would have bitten through my ankle. "

"It has pretty nearly, " said Thaddy. 

"It seemed to me to hit out with its claws pretty freely. That is about asmuch as I know about the beast. Our conversation was intimate, so tospeak, and yet not confidential. "

"The Dyak chaps talk about a Big Colugo, a Klang-utang--whatever that maybe. It does not often attack man, but I suppose you made it nervous. Theysay there is a Big Colugo and a Little Colugo, and a something else thatsounds like gobble. They all fly about at night. For my own part, I knowthere are flying foxes and flying lemurs about here, but they are none ofthem very big beasts. "

"There are more things in heaven and earth, " said Woodhouse--and Thaddygroaned at the quotation--"and more particularly in the forests of Borneo, than are dreamt of in our philosophies. On the whole, if the Borneo faunais going to disgorge any more of its novelties upon me, I should preferthat it did so when I was not occupied in the observatory at night andalone. "

 VI. 

 AEPYORNIS ISLAND. 

The man with the scarred face leant over the table and looked at mybundle. 

"Orchids?" he asked. 

"A few, " I said. 

"Cypripediums, " he said. 

"Chiefly, " said I. 

"Anything new? I thought not. _I_ did these islands twenty-five--twenty-seven years ago. If you find anything new here--well, it's brandnew. I didn't leave much. "

"I'm not a collector, " said I. 

"I was young then, " he went on. "Lord! how I used to fly round. " He seemedto take my measure. "I was in the East Indies two years, and in Brazilseven. Then I went to Madagascar. "

"I know a few explorers by name, " I said, anticipating a yarn. "Whom didyou collect for?"

"Dawson's. I wonder if you've heard the name of Butcher ever?"

"Butcher--Butcher?" The name seemed vaguely present in my memory;then I recalled _Butcher_ v. _Dawson_. "Why!" said I, "you are theman who sued them for four years' salary--got cast away on a desertisland... "

"Your servant, " said the man with the scar, bowing. "Funny case, wasn'tit? Here was me, making a little fortune on that island, doing nothingfor it neither, and them quite unable to give me notice. It often usedto amuse me thinking over it while I was there. I did calculations ofit--big--all over the blessed atoll in ornamental figuring. "

"How did it happen?" said I. "I don't rightly remember the case. "

"Well... You've heard of the AEpyornis?"

"Rather. Andrews was telling me of a new species he was working on only amonth or so ago. Just before I sailed. They've got a thigh bone, it seems, nearly a yard long. Monster the thing must have been!"

"I believe you, " said the man with the scar. "It _was_ a monster. Sindbad's roc was just a legend of 'em. But when did they find thesebones?"

"Three or four years ago--'91, I fancy. Why?"

"Why? Because _I_ found them--Lord!--it's nearly twenty years ago. IfDawson's hadn't been silly about that salary they might have made aperfect ring in 'em... _I_ couldn't help the infernal boat goingadrift. "

He paused. "I suppose it's the same place. A kind of swamp about ninetymiles north of Antananarivo. Do you happen to know? You have to go to italong the coast by boats. You don't happen to remember, perhaps?"

"I don't. I fancy Andrews said something about a swamp. "

"It must be the same. It's on the east coast. And somehow there'ssomething in the water that keeps things from decaying. Like creosote itsmells. It reminded me of Trinidad. Did they get any more eggs? Some ofthe eggs I found were a foot-and-a-half long. The swamp goes circlinground, you know, and cuts off this bit. It's mostly salt, too. Well... What a time I had of it! I found the things quite by accident. We went foreggs, me and two native chaps, in one of those rum canoes all tiedtogether, and found the bones at the same time. We had a tent andprovisions for four days, and we pitched on one of the firmer places. Tothink of it brings that odd tarry smell back even now. It's funny work. You go probing into the mud with iron rods, you know. Usually the egg getssmashed. I wonder how long it is since these AEpyornises really lived. Themissionaries say the natives have legends about when they were alive, butI never heard any such stories myself. [*] But certainly those eggs we gotwere as fresh as if they had been new laid. Fresh! Carrying them down tothe boat one of my nigger chaps dropped one on a rock and it smashed. HowI lammed into the beggar! But sweet it was, as if it was new laid, noteven smelly, and its mother dead these four hundred years, perhaps. Said acentipede had bit him. However, I'm getting off the straight with thestory. It had taken us all day to dig into the slush and get these eggsout unbroken, and we were all covered with beastly black mud, andnaturally I was cross. So far as I knew they were the only eggs that haveever been got out not even cracked. I went afterwards to see the ones theyhave at the Natural History Museum in London; all of them were cracked andjust stuck together like a mosaic, and bits missing. Mine were perfect, and I meant to blow them when I got back. Naturally I was annoyed at thesilly duffer dropping three hours' work just on account of a centipede. Ihit him about rather. "

[Footnote *: No European is known to have seen a live AEpyornis, with thedoubtful exception of MacAndrew, who visited Madagascar in 1745. --H. G. W. ]

The man with the scar took out a clay pipe. I placed my pouch before him. He filled up absent-mindedly. 

"How about the others? Did you get those home? I don't remember--"

"That's the queer part of the story. I had three others. Perfectly fresheggs. Well, we put 'em in the boat, and then I went up to the tent to makesome coffee, leaving my two heathens down by the beach--the one foolingabout with his sting and the other helping him. It never occurred to methat the beggars would take advantage of the peculiar position I was in topick a quarrel. But I suppose the centipede poison and the kicking I hadgiven him had upset the one--he was always a cantankerous sort--and hepersuaded the other. 

"I remember I was sitting and smoking and boiling up the water over aspirit-lamp business I used to take on these expeditions. Incidentally Iwas admiring the swamp under the sunset. All black and blood-red it was, in streaks--a beautiful sight. And up beyond the land rose grey and hazyto the hills, and the sky behind them red, like a furnace mouth. And fiftyyards behind the back of me was these blessed heathen--quite regardless ofthe tranquil air of things--plotting to cut off with the boat and leave meall alone with three days' provisions and a canvas tent, and nothing todrink whatsoever beyond a little keg of water. I heard a kind of yelpbehind me, and there they were in this canoe affair--it wasn't properly aboat--and, perhaps, twenty yards from land. I realised what was up in amoment. My gun was in the tent, and, besides, I had no bullets--only duckshot. They knew that. But I had a little revolver in my pocket, and Ipulled that out as I ran down to the beach. 

"'Come back!' says I, flourishing it. 

"They jabbered something at me, and the man that broke the egg jeered. Iaimed at the other--because he was unwounded and had the paddle, and Imissed. They laughed. However, I wasn't beat. I knew I had to keep cool, and I tried him again and made him jump with the whang of it. He didn'tlaugh that time. The third time I got his head, and over he went, and thepaddle with him. It was a precious lucky shot for a revolver. I reckon itwas fifty yards. He went right under. I don't know if he was shot, orsimply stunned and drowned. Then I began to shout to the other chap tocome back, but he huddled up in the canoe and refused to answer. So Ifired out my revolver at him and never got near him. 

"I felt a precious fool, I can tell you. There I was on this rotten, blackbeach, flat swamp all behind me, and the flat sea, cold after the sun set, and just this black canoe drifting steadily out to sea. I tell you Idamned Dawson's and Jamrach's and Museums and all the rest of it just torights. I bawled to this nigger to come back, until my voice went up intoa scream. 

"There was nothing for it but to swim after him and take my luck with thesharks. So I opened my clasp-knife and put it in my mouth, and took offmy clothes and waded in. As soon as I was in the water I lost sight ofthe canoe, but I aimed, as I judged, to head it off. I hoped the man in itwas too bad to navigate it, and that it would keep on drifting in thesame direction. Presently it came up over the horizon again to thesouth-westward about. The afterglow of sunset was well over now and thedim of night creeping up. The stars were coming through the blue. I swumlike a champion, though my legs and arms were soon aching. 

"However, I came up to him by the time the stars were fairly out. As itgot darker I began to see all manner of glowing things in the water--phosphorescence, you know. At times it made me giddy. I hardly knew whichwas stars and which was phosphorescence, and whether I was swimming on myhead or my heels. The canoe was as black as sin, and the ripple under thebows like liquid fire. I was naturally chary of clambering up into it. Iwas anxious to see what he was up to first. He seemed to be lying cuddledup in a lump in the bows, and the stern was all out of water. The thingkept turning round slowly as it drifted---kind of waltzing, don't youknow. I went to the stern and pulled it down, expecting him to wake up. Then I began to clamber in with my knife in my hand, and ready for a rush. But he never stirred. So there I sat in the stern of the little canoe, drifting away over the calm phosphorescent sea, and with all the host ofthe stars above me, waiting for something to happen. 

"After a long time I called him by name, but he never answered. I was tootired to take any risks by going along to him. So we sat there. I fancy Idozed once or twice. When the dawn came I saw he was as dead as a doornailand all puffed up and purple. My three eggs and the bones were lying inthe middle of the canoe, and the keg of water and some coffee and biscuitswrapped in a Cape _Argus_ by his feet, and a tin of methylated spiritunderneath him. There was no paddle, nor, in fact, anything except thespirit-tin that I could use as one, so I settled to drift until I waspicked up. I held an inquest on him, brought in a verdict against somesnake, scorpion, or centipede unknown, and sent him overboard. 

"After that I had a drink of water and a few biscuits, and took a lookround. I suppose a man low down as I was don't see very far; leastways, Madagascar was clean out of sight, and any trace of land at all. I saw asail going south-westward--looked like a schooner but her hull never cameup. Presently the sun got high in the sky and began to beat down upon me. Lord! it pretty near made my brains boil. I tried dipping my head in thesea, but after a while my eye fell on the Cape _Argus_, and I laydown flat in the canoe and spread this over me. Wonderful things thesenewspapers! I never read one through thoroughly before, but it's odd whatyou get up to when you're alone, as I was. I suppose I read that blessedold Cape _Argus_ twenty times. The pitch in the canoe simply reekedwith the heat and rose up into big blisters. 

"I drifted ten days, " said the man with the scar. "It's a little thing inthe telling, isn't it? Every day was like the last. Except in the morningand the evening I never kept a look-out even--the blaze was so infernal. Ididn't see a sail after the first three days, and those I saw took nonotice of me. About the sixth night a ship went by scarcely half a mileaway from me, with all its lights ablaze and its ports open, looking likea big firefly. There was music aboard. I stood up and shouted and screamedat it. The second day I broached one of the AEpyornis eggs, scraped theshell away at the end bit by bit, and tried it, and I was glad to find itwas good enough to eat. A bit flavoury--not bad, I mean--but withsomething of the taste of a duck's egg. There was a kind of circularpatch, about six inches across, on one side of the yoke, and with streaksof blood and a white mark like a ladder in it that I thought queer, but Idid not understand what this meant at the time, and I wasn't inclined tobe particular. The egg lasted me three days, with biscuits and a drink ofwater. I chewed coffee berries too--invigorating stuff. The second egg Iopened about the eighth day, and it scared me. "

The man with the scar paused. "Yes, " he said, "developing. "

"I daresay you find it hard to believe. _I_ did, with the thingbefore me. There the egg had been, sunk in that cold black mud, perhapsthree hundred years. But there was no mistaking it. There was the--what isit?--embryo, with its big head and curved back, and its heart beatingunder its throat, and the yolk shrivelled up and great membranes spreadinginside of the shell and all over the yolk. Here was I hatching out theeggs of the biggest of all extinct birds, in a little canoe in the midstof the Indian Ocean. If old Dawson had known that! It was worth fouryears' salary. What do _you_ think?

"However, I had to eat that precious thing up, every bit of it, before Isighted the reef, and some of the mouthfuls were beastly unpleasant. Ileft the third one alone. I held it up to the light, but the shell was toothick for me to get any notion of what might be happening inside; andthough I fancied I heard blood pulsing, it might have been the rustle inmy own ears, like what you listen to in a seashell. 

"Then came the atoll. Came out of the sunrise, as it were, suddenly, closeup to me. I drifted straight towards it until I was about half a mile fromshore, not more, and then the current took a turn, and I had to paddle ashard as I could with my hands and bits of the AEpyornis shell to make theplace. However, I got there. It was just a common atoll about four milesround, with a few trees growing and a spring in one place, and the lagoonfull of parrot-fish. I took the egg ashore and put it in a good place, well above the tide lines and in the sun, to give it all the chance Icould, and pulled the canoe up safe, and loafed about prospecting. It'srum how dull an atoll is. As soon as I had found a spring all the interestseemed to vanish. When I was a kid I thought nothing could be finer ormore adventurous than the Robinson Crusoe business, but that place was asmonotonous as a book of sermons. I went round finding eatable things andgenerally thinking; but I tell you I was bored to death before the firstday was out. It shows my luck--the very day I landed the weather changed. A thunderstorm went by to the north and flicked its wing over the island, and in the night there came a drencher and a howling wind slap over us. Itwouldn't have taken much, you know, to upset that canoe. 

"I was sleeping under the canoe, and the egg was luckily among the sandhigher up the beach, and the first thing I remember was a sound like ahundred pebbles hitting the boat at once, and a rush of water over mybody. I'd been dreaming of Antananarivo, and I sat up and holloaed toIntoshi to ask her what the devil was up, and clawed out at the chairwhere the matches used to be. Then I remembered where I was. There werephosphorescent waves rolling up as if they meant to eat me, and all therest of the night as black as pitch. The air was simply yelling. Theclouds seemed down on your head almost, and the rain fell as if heaven wassinking and they were baling out the waters above the firmament. One greatroller came writhing at me, like a fiery serpent, and I bolted. Then Ithought of the canoe, and ran down to it as the water went hissing backagain; but the thing had gone. I wondered about the egg then, and felt myway to it. It was all right and well out of reach of the maddest waves, soI sat down beside it and cuddled it for company. Lord! what a night thatwas!

"The storm was over before the morning. There wasn't a rag of cloud leftin the sky when the dawn came, and all along the beach there were bits ofplank scattered--which was the disarticulated skeleton, so to speak, of mycanoe. However, that gave me something to do, for, taking advantage of twoof the trees being together, I rigged up a kind of storm-shelter withthese vestiges. And that day the egg hatched. 

"Hatched, sir, when my head was pillowed on it and I was asleep. I heard awhack and felt a jar and sat up, and there was the end of the egg peckedout and a rum little brown head looking out at me. 'Lord!' I said, 'you'rewelcome'; and with a little difficulty he came out. 

"He was a nice friendly little chap at first, about the size of a smallhen--very much like most other young birds, only bigger. His plumage was adirty brown to begin with, with a sort of grey scab that fell off it verysoon, and scarcely feathers--a kind of downy hair. I can hardly expresshow pleased I was to see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make nearenough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked atme and winked his eye from the front backwards, like a hen, and gave achirp and began to peck about at once, as though being hatched threehundred years too late was just nothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!'says I, for I had naturally settled he was to be called Man Friday if everhe was hatched, as soon as ever I found the egg in the canoe haddeveloped. I was a bit anxious about his feed, so I gave him a lump of rawparrot-fish at once. He took it, and opened his beak for more. I was gladof that for, under the circumstances, if he'd been at all fanciful, Ishould have had to eat him after all. 

"You'd be surprised what an interesting bird that AEpyornis chick was. Hefollowed me about from the very beginning. He used to stand by me andwatch while I fished in the lagoon, and go shares in anything I caught. And he was sensible, too. There were nasty green warty things, likepickled gherkins, used to lie about on the beach, and he tried one ofthese and it upset him. He never even looked at any of them again. 

"And he grew. You could almost see him grow. And as I was never much of asociety man, his quiet, friendly ways suited me to a T. For nearly twoyears we were as happy as we could be on that island. I had no businessworries, for I knew my salary was mounting up at Dawsons'. We would see asail now and then, but nothing ever came near us. I amused myself, too, bydecorating the island with designs worked in sea-urchins and fancy shellsof various kinds. I put AEPYORNIS ISLAND all round the place very nearly, in big letters, like what you see done with coloured stones at railwaystations in the old country, and mathematical calculations and drawings ofvarious sorts. And I used to lie watching the blessed bird stalking roundand growing, growing; and think how I could make a living out of him byshowing him about if I ever got taken off. After his first moult he beganto get handsome, with a crest and a blue wattle, and a lot of greenfeathers at the behind of him. And then I used to puzzle whether Dawsons'had any right to claim him or not. Stormy weather and in the rainy seasonwe lay snug under the shelter I had made out of the old canoe, and I usedto tell him lies about my friends at home. And after a storm we would goround the island together to see if there was any drift. It was a kind ofidyll, you might say. If only I had had some tobacco it would have beensimply just like heaven. 

"It was about the end of the second year our little paradise went wrong. Friday was then about fourteen feet high to the bill of him, with a big, broad head like the end of a pickaxe, and two huge brown eyes with yellowrims, set together like a man's--not out of sight of each other like ahen's. His plumage was fine--none of the half-mourning style of yourostrich--more like a cassowary as far as colour and texture go. And thenit was he began to cock his comb at me and give himself airs, and showsigns of a nasty temper ... 

"At last came a time when my fishing had been rather unlucky, and he beganto hang about me in a queer, meditative way. I thought he might have beeneating sea-cucumbers or something, but it was really just discontent onhis part. I was hungry too, and when at last I landed a fish I wanted itfor myself. Tempers were short that morning on both sides. He pecked at itand grabbed it, and I gave him a whack on the head to make him leave go. And at that he went for me. Lord! ... 

"He gave me this in the face. " The man indicated his scar. "Then he kickedme. It was like a carthorse. I got up, and seeing he hadn't finished, Istarted off full tilt with my arms doubled up over my face. But he ran onthose gawky legs of his faster than a racehorse, and kept landing out atme with sledgehammer kicks, and bringing his pickaxe down on the back ofmy head. I made for the lagoon, and went in up to my neck. He stopped atthe water, for he hated getting his feet wet, and began to make a shindy, something like a peacock's, only hoarser. He started strutting up and downthe beach. I'll admit I felt small to see this blessed fossil lording itthere. And my head and face were all bleeding, and--well, my body just onejelly of bruises. 

"I decided to swim across the lagoon and leave him alone for a bit, untilthe affair blew over. I shinned up the tallest palm-tree, and sat therethinking of it all. I don't suppose I ever felt so hurt by anything beforeor since. It was the brutal ingratitude of the creature. I'd been morethan a brother to him. I'd hatched him, educated him. A great gawky, out-of-date bird! And me a human being--heir of the ages and all that. 

"I thought after a time he'd begin to see things in that light himself, and feel a little sorry for his behaviour. I thought if I was to catchsome nice little bits of fish, perhaps, and go to him presently in acasual kind of way, and offer them to him, he might do the sensible thing. It took me some time to learn how unforgiving and cantankerous an extinctbird can be. Malice!

"I won't tell you all the little devices I tried to get that bird roundagain, I simply can't. It makes my cheek burn with shame even now to thinkof the snubs and buffets I had from this infernal curiosity. I triedviolence. I chucked lumps of coral at him from a safe distance, but heonly swallowed them. I shied my open knife at him and almost lost it, though it was too big for him to swallow. I tried starving him out andstruck fishing, but he took to picking along the beach at low water afterworms, and rubbed along on that. Half my time I spent up to my neck in thelagoon, and the rest up the palm-trees. One of them was scarcely highenough, and when he caught me up it he had a regular Bank Holiday with thecalves of my legs. It got unbearable. I don't know if you have ever triedsleeping up a palm-tree. It gave me the most horrible nightmares. Think ofthe shame of it, too! Here was this extinct animal mooning about my islandlike a sulky duke, and me not allowed to rest the sole of my foot on theplace. I used to cry with weariness and vexation. I told him straight thatI didn't mean to be chased about a desert island by any damnedanachronisms. I told him to go and peck a navigator of his own age. But heonly snapped his beak at me. Great ugly bird, all legs and neck!

"I shouldn't like to say how long that went on altogether. I'd have killedhim sooner if I'd known how. However, I hit on a way of settling him atlast. It is a South American dodge. I joined all my fishing-lines togetherwith stems of seaweed and things, and made a stoutish string, perhapstwelve yards in length or more, and I fastened two lumps of coral rock tothe ends of this. It took me some time to do, because every now and thenI had to go into the lagoon or up a tree as the fancy took me. This Iwhirled rapidly round my head, and then let it go at him. The first time Imissed, but the next time the string caught his legs beautifully, andwrapped round them again and again. Over he went. I threw it standingwaist-deep in the lagoon, and as soon as he went down I was out of thewater and sawing at his neck with my knife ... 

"I don't like to think of that even now. I felt like a murderer while Idid it, though my anger was hot against him. When I stood over him and sawhim bleeding on the white sand, and his beautiful great legs and neckwrithing in his last agony ... Pah!

"With that tragedy loneliness came upon me like a curse. Good Lord! youcan't imagine how I missed that bird. I sat by his corpse and sorrowedover him, and shivered as I looked round the desolate, silent reef. I thought of what a jolly little bird he had been when he was hatched, andof a thousand pleasant tricks he had played before he went wrong. I thought if I'd only wounded him I might have nursed him round into abetter understanding. If I'd had any means of digging into the coral rockI'd have buried him. I felt exactly as if he was human. As it was, I couldn't think of eating him, so I put him in the lagoon, and the littlefishes picked him clean. I didn't even save the feathers. Then one day achap cruising about in a yacht had a fancy to see if my atoll stillexisted. 

"He didn't come a moment too soon, for I was about sick enough of thedesolation of it, and only hesitating whether I should walk out into thesea and finish up the business that way, or fall back on the greenthings... 

"I sold the bones to a man named Winslow--a dealer near the BritishMuseum, and he says he sold them to old Havers. It seems Havers didn'tunderstand they were extra large, and it was only after his death theyattracted attention. They called 'em AEpyornis--what was it?"

"_AEpyornis vastus_, " said I. "It's funny, the very thing wasmentioned to me by a friend of mine. When they found an AEpyornis, with athigh a yard long, they thought they had reached the top of the scale, andcalled him _AEpyornis maximus_. Then some one turned up anotherthigh-bone four feet six or more, and that they called _AEpyornisTitan_. Then your _vastus_ was found after old Havers died, in hiscollection, and then a _vastissimus_ turned up. "

"Winslow was telling me as much, " said the man with the scar. "If they getany more AEpyornises, he reckons some scientific swell will go and burst ablood-vessel. But it was a queer thing to happen to a man; wasn't it--altogether?"

 VII. 

 THE REMARKABLE CASE OF DAVIDSON'S EYES. 

I. 

The transitory mental aberration of Sidney Davidson, remarkable enough initself, is still more remarkable if Wade's explanation is to be credited. It sets one dreaming of the oddest possibilities of intercommunication inthe future, of spending an intercalary five minutes on the other side ofthe world, or being watched in our most secret operations by unsuspectedeyes. It happened that I was the immediate witness of Davidson's seizure, and so it falls naturally to me to put the story upon paper. 

When I say that I was the immediate witness of his seizure, I mean that Iwas the first on the scene. The thing happened at the Harlow TechnicalCollege, just beyond the Highgate Archway. He was alone in the largerlaboratory when the thing happened. I was in a smaller room, where thebalances are, writing up some notes. The thunderstorm had completely upsetmy work, of course. It was just after one of the louder peals that Ithought I heard some glass smash in the other room. I stopped writing, andturned round to listen. For a moment I heard nothing; the hail was playingthe devil's tattoo on the corrugated zinc of the roof. Then came anothersound, a smash--no doubt of it this time. Something heavy had been knockedoff the bench. I jumped up at once and went and opened the door leadinginto the big laboratory. 

I was surprised to hear a queer sort of laugh, and saw Davidson standingunsteadily in the middle of the room, with a dazzled look on his face. Myfirst impression was that he was drunk. He did not notice me. He wasclawing out at something invisible a yard in front of his face. He put outhis hand, slowly, rather hesitatingly, and then clutched nothing. "What'scome to it?" he said. He held up his hands to his face, fingers spreadout. "Great Scott!" he said. The thing happened three or four years ago, when every one swore by that personage. Then he began raising his feetclumsily, as though he had expected to find them glued to the floor. 

"Davidson!" cried I. "What's the matter with you?" He turned round in mydirection and looked about for me. He looked over me and at me and oneither side of me, without the slightest sign of seeing me. "Waves, " hesaid; "and a remarkably neat schooner. I'd swear that was Bellow's voice. _Hullo_!" He shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. 

I thought he was up to some foolery. Then I saw littered about his feetthe shattered remains of the best of our electrometers. "What's up, man?"said I. "You've smashed the electrometer!"

"Bellows again!" said he. "Friends left, if my hands are gone. Somethingabout electrometers. Which way _are_ you, Bellows?" He suddenly camestaggering towards me. "The damned stuff cuts like butter, " he said. Hewalked straight into the bench and recoiled. "None so buttery that!" hesaid, and stood swaying. 

I felt scared. "Davidson, " said I, "what on earth's come over you?"

He looked round him in every direction. "I could swear that was Bellows. Why don't you show yourself like a man, Bellows?"

It occurred to me that he must be suddenly struck blind. I walked roundthe table and laid my hand upon his arm. I never saw a man more startledin my life. He jumped away from me, and came round into an attitude ofself-defence, his face fairly distorted with terror. "Good God!" he cried. "What was that?"

"It's I--Bellows. Confound it, Davidson!"

He jumped when I answered him and stared--how can I express it?--rightthrough me. He began talking, not to me, but to himself. "Here in broaddaylight on a clear beach. Not a place to hide in. " He looked about himwildly. "Here! I'm _off_. " He suddenly turned and ran headlong intothe big electro-magnet--so violently that, as we found afterwards, hebruised his shoulder and jawbone cruelly. At that he stepped back a pace, and cried out with almost a whimper, "What, in Heaven's name, has comeover me?" He stood, blanched with terror and trembling violently, with hisright arm clutching his left, where that had collided with the magnet. 

By that time I was excited and fairly scared. "Davidson, " said I, "don'tbe afraid. "

He was startled at my voice, but not so excessively as before. I repeatedmy words in as clear and as firm a tone as I could assume. "Bellows, " hesaid, "is that you?"

"Can't you see it's me?"

He laughed. "I can't even see it's myself. Where the devil are we?"

"Here, " said I, "in the laboratory. "

"The laboratory!" he answered in a puzzled tone, and put his hand to hisforehead. "I _was_ in the laboratory--till that flash came, but I'mhanged if I'm there now. What ship is that?"

"There's no ship, " said I. "Do be sensible, old chap. "

"No ship!" he repeated, and seemed to forget my denial forthwith. "Isuppose, " said he slowly, "we're both dead. But the rummy part is I feeljust as though I still had a body. Don't get used to it all at once, Isuppose. The old shop was struck by lightning, I suppose. Jolly quickthing, Bellows--eigh?"

"Don't talk nonsense. You're very much alive. You are in the laboratory, blundering about. You've just smashed a new electrometer. I don't envy youwhen Boyce arrives. "

He stared away from me towards the diagrams of cryohydrates. "I must bedeaf, " said he. "They've fired a gun, for there goes the puff of smoke, and I never heard a sound. "

I put my hand on his arm again, and this time he was less alarmed. "Weseem to have a sort of invisible bodies, " said he. "By Jove! there's aboat coming round the headland. It's very much like the old life afterall--in a different climate. "

I shook his arm. "Davidson, " I cried, "wake up!"

II. 

It was just then that Boyce came in. So soon as he spoke Davidsonexclaimed: "Old Boyce! Dead too! What a lark!" I hastened to explain thatDavidson was in a kind of somnambulistic trance. Boyce was interested atonce. We both did all we could to rouse the fellow out of hisextraordinary state. He answered our questions, and asked us some of hisown, but his attention seemed distracted by his hallucination about abeach and a ship. He kept interpolating observations concerning some boatand the davits, and sails filling with the wind. It made one feel queer, in the dusky laboratory, to hear him saying such things. 

He was blind and helpless. We had to walk him down the passage, one ateach elbow, to Boyce's private room, and while Boyce talked to him there, and humoured him about this ship idea, I went along the corridor and askedold Wade to come and look at him. The voice of our Dean sobered him alittle, but not very much. He asked where his hands were, and why he hadto walk about up to his waist in the ground. Wade thought over him a longtime--you know how he knits his brows--and then made him feel the couch, guiding his hands to it. "That's a couch, " said Wade. "The couch in theprivate room of Professor Boyce. Horse-hair stuffing. "

Davidson felt about, and puzzled over it, and answered presently that hecould feel it all right, but he couldn't see it. 

"What _do_ you see?" asked Wade. Davidson said he could see nothingbut a lot of sand and broken-up shells. Wade gave him some other things tofeel, telling him what they were, and watching him keenly. 

"The ship is almost hull down, " said Davidson presently, _apropos_ ofnothing. 

"Never mind the ship, " said Wade. "Listen to me, Davidson. Do you knowwhat hallucination means?"

"Rather, " said Davidson. 

"Well, everything you see is hallucinatory. "

"Bishop Berkeley, " said Davidson. 

"Don't mistake me, " said Wade. "You are alive and in this room of Boyce's. But something has happened to your eyes. You cannot see; you can feel andhear, but not see. Do you follow me?"

"It seems to me that I see too much. " Davidson rubbed his knuckles intohis eyes. "Well?" he said. 

"That's all. Don't let it perplex you. Bellows here and I will take youhome in a cab. "

"Wait a bit. " Davidson thought. "Help me to sit down, " said he presently;"and now--I'm sorry to trouble you--but will you tell me all that overagain?"

Wade repeated it very patiently. Davidson shut his eyes, and pressed hishands upon his forehead. "Yes, " said he. "It's quite right. Now my eyesare shut I know you're right. That's you, Bellows, sitting by me on thecouch. I'm in England again. And we're in the dark. "

Then he opened his eyes. "And there, " said he, "is the sun just rising, and the yards of the ship, and a tumbled sea, and a couple of birdsflying. I never saw anything so real. And I'm sitting up to my neck in abank of sand. "

He bent forward and covered his face with his hands. Then he opened hiseyes again. "Dark sea and sunrise! And yet I'm sitting on a sofa in oldBoyce's room!... God help me!"

III. 

That was the beginning. For three weeks this strange affection ofDavidson's eyes continued unabated. It was far worse than being blind. Hewas absolutely helpless, and had to be fed like a newly-hatched bird, andled about and undressed. If he attempted to move, he fell over things orstruck himself against walls or doors. After a day or so he got used tohearing our voices without seeing us, and willingly admitted he was athome, and that Wade was right in what he told him. My sister, to whom hewas engaged, insisted on coming to see him, and would sit for hours everyday while he talked about this beach of his. Holding her hand seemed tocomfort him immensely. He explained that when we left the College anddrove home--he lived in Hampstead village--it appeared to him as if wedrove right through a sandhill--it was perfectly black until he emergedagain--and through rocks and trees and solid obstacles, and when he wastaken to his own room it made him giddy and almost frantic with the fearof falling, because going upstairs seemed to lift him thirty or forty feetabove the rocks of his imaginary island. He kept saying he should smashall the eggs. The end was that he had to be taken down into his father'sconsulting room and laid upon a couch that stood there. 

He described the island as being a bleak kind of place on the whole, withvery little vegetation, except some peaty stuff, and a lot of bare rock. There were multitudes of penguins, and they made the rocks white anddisagreeable to see. The sea was often rough, and once there was athunderstorm, and he lay and shouted at the silent flashes. Once or twiceseals pulled up on the beach, but only on the first two or three days. Hesaid it was very funny the way in which the penguins used to waddle rightthrough him, and how he seemed to lie among them without disturbing them. 

I remember one odd thing, and that was when he wanted very badly to smoke. We put a pipe in his hands--he almost poked his eye out with it--and litit. But he couldn't taste anything. I've since found it's the same withme--I don't know if it's the usual case--that I cannot enjoy tobacco atall unless I can see the smoke. 

But the queerest part of his vision came when Wade sent him out in aBath-chair to get fresh air. The Davidsons hired a chair, and got thatdeaf and obstinate dependant of theirs, Widgery, to attend to it. Widgery's ideas of healthy expeditions were peculiar. My sister, who hadbeen to the Dogs' Home, met them in Camden Town, towards King's Cross, Widgery trotting along complacently, and Davidson, evidently mostdistressed, trying in his feeble, blind way to attract Widgery'sattention. 

He positively wept when my sister spoke to him. "Oh, get me out of thishorrible darkness!" he said, feeling for her hand. "I must get out of it, or I shall die. " He was quite incapable of explaining what was the matter, but my sister decided he must go home, and presently, as they went uphilltowards Hampstead, the horror seemed to drop from him. He said it was goodto see the stars again, though it was then about noon and a blazing day. 

"It seemed, " he told me afterwards, "as if I was being carriedirresistibly towards the water. I was not very much alarmed at first. Ofcourse it was night there--a lovely night. "

"Of course?" I asked, for that struck me as odd. 

"Of course, " said he. "It's always night there when it is day here... Well, we went right into the water, which was calm and shining under themoonlight--just a broad swell that seemed to grow broader and flatter as Icame down into it. The surface glistened just like a skin--it might havebeen empty space underneath for all I could tell to the contrary. Veryslowly, for I rode slanting into it, the water crept up to my eyes. Then Iwent under and the skin seemed to break and heal again about my eyes. Themoon gave a jump up in the sky and grew green and dim, and fish, faintlyglowing, came darting round me--and things that seemed made of luminousglass; and I passed through a tangle of seaweeds that shone with an oilylustre. And so I drove down into the sea, and the stars went out one byone, and the moon grew greener and darker, and the seaweed became aluminous purple-red. It was all very faint and mysterious, and everythingseemed to quiver. And all the while I could hear the wheels of theBath-chair creaking, and the footsteps of people going by, and a man inthe distance selling the special _Pall Mall_. 

"I kept sinking down deeper and deeper into the water. It became inkyblack about me, not a ray from above came down into that darkness, and thephosphorescent things grew brighter and brighter. The snaky branches ofthe deeper weeds flickered like the flames of spirit-lamps; but, after atime, there were no more weeds. The fishes came staring and gaping towardsme, and into me and through me. I never imagined such fishes before. Theyhad lines of fire along the sides of them as though they had been outlinedwith a luminous pencil. And there was a ghastly thing swimming backwardswith a lot of twining arms. And then I saw, coming very slowly towards methrough the gloom, a hazy mass of light that resolved itself as it drewnearer into multitudes of fishes, struggling and darting round somethingthat drifted. I drove on straight towards it, and presently I saw in themidst of the tumult, and by the light of the fish, a bit of splinteredspar looming over me, and a dark hull tilting over, and some glowingphosphorescent forms that were shaken and writhed as the fish bit at them. Then it was I began to try to attract Widgery's attention. A horror cameupon me. Ugh! I should have driven right into those half-eaten--things. Ifyour sister had not come! They had great holes in them, Bellows, and ... Never mind. But it was ghastly!"

IV. 

For three weeks Davidson remained in this singular state, seeing what atthe time we imagined was an altogether phantasmal world, and stone blindto the world around him. Then, one Tuesday, when I called I met oldDavidson in the passage. "He can see his thumb!" the old gentleman said, in a perfect transport. He was struggling into his overcoat. "He can seehis thumb, Bellows!" he said, with the tears in his eyes. "The lad will beall right yet. "

I rushed in to Davidson. He was holding up a little book before his face, and looking at it and laughing in a weak kind of way. 

"It's amazing, " said he. "There's a kind of patch come there. " He pointedwith his finger. "I'm on the rocks as usual, and the penguins arestaggering and flapping about as usual, and there's been a whale showingevery now and then, but it's got too dark now to make him out. But putsomething _there_, and I see it--I do see it. It's very dim andbroken in places, but I see it all the same, like a faint spectre ofitself. I found it out this morning while they were dressing me. It's likea hole in this infernal phantom world. Just put your hand by mine. No--notthere. Ah! Yes! I see it. The base of your thumb and a bit of cuff! Itlooks like the ghost of a bit of your hand sticking out of the darklingsky. Just by it there's a group of stars like a cross coming out. "

From that time Davidson began to mend. His account of the change, like hisaccount of the vision, was oddly convincing. Over patches of his field ofvision, the phantom world grew fainter, grew transparent, as it were, andthrough these translucent gaps he began to see dimly the real world abouthim. The patches grew in size and number, ran together and spread untilonly here and there were blind spots left upon his eyes. He was able toget up and steer himself about, feed himself once more, read, smoke, andbehave like an ordinary citizen again. At first it was very confusing tohim to have these two pictures overlapping each other like the changingviews of a lantern, but in a little while he began to distinguish the realfrom the illusory. 

At first he was unfeignedly glad, and seemed only too anxious to completehis cure by taking exercise and tonics. But as that odd island of hisbegan to fade away from him, he became queerly interested in it. He wantedparticularly to go down into the deep sea again, and would spend half histime wandering about the low-lying parts of London, trying to find thewater-logged wreck he had seen drifting. The glare of real daylight verysoon impressed him so vividly as to blot out everything of his shadowyworld, but of a night-time, in a darkened room, he could still see thewhite-splashed rocks of the island, and the clumsy penguins staggering toand fro. But even these grew fainter and fainter, and, at last, soon afterhe married my sister, he saw them for the last time. 

V. 

And now to tell of the queerest thing of all. About two years after hiscure I dined with the Davidsons, and after dinner a man named Atkinscalled in. He is a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and a pleasant, talkativeman. He was on friendly terms with my brother-in-law, and was soon onfriendly terms with me. It came out that he was engaged to Davidson'scousin, and incidentally he took out a kind of pocket photograph case toshow us a new rendering of his _fiancée_. "And, by-the-by, " said he, "here's the old _Fulmar_. "

Davidson looked at it casually. Then suddenly his face lit up. "Goodheavens!" said he. "I could almost swear----"

"What?" said Atkins. 

"That I had seen that ship before. "

"Don't see how you can have. She hasn't been out of the South Seas for sixyears, and before then----"

"But, " began Davidson, and then, "Yes--that's the ship I dreamt of; I'msure that's the ship I dreamt of. She was standing off an island thatswarmed with penguins, and she fired a gun. "

"Good Lord!" said Atkins, who had now heard the particulars of theseizure. "How the deuce could you dream that?"

And then, bit by bit, it came out that on the very day Davidson wasseized, H. M. S. _Fulmar_ had actually been off a little rock to thesouth of Antipodes Island. A boat had landed overnight to get penguins'eggs, had been delayed, and a thunderstorm drifting up, the boat's crewhad waited until the morning before rejoining the ship. Atkins had beenone of them, and he corroborated, word for word, the descriptions Davidsonhad given of the island and the boat. There is not the slightest doubt inany of our minds that Davidson has really seen the place. In someunaccountable way, while he moved hither and thither in London, his sightmoved hither and thither in a manner that corresponded, about this distantisland. _How_ is absolutely a mystery. 

That completes the remarkable story of Davidson's eyes. It's perhaps thebest authenticated case in existence of real vision at a distance. Explanation there is none forthcoming, except what Professor Wade hasthrown out. But his explanation invokes the Fourth Dimension, and adissertation on theoretical kinds of space. To talk of there being "a kinkin space" seems mere nonsense to me; it may be because I am nomathematician. When I said that nothing would alter the fact that theplace is eight thousand miles away, he answered that two points might be ayard away on a sheet of paper, and yet be brought together by bending thepaper round. The reader may grasp his argument, but I certainly do not. His idea seems to be that Davidson, stooping between the poles of the bigelectro-magnet, had some extraordinary twist given to his retinal elementsthrough the sudden change in the field of force due to the lightning. 

He thinks, as a consequence of this, that it may be possible to livevisually in one part of the world, while one lives bodily in another. Hehas even made some experiments in support of his views; but, so far, hehas simply succeeded in blinding a few dogs. I believe that is the netresult of his work, though I have not seen him for some weeks. Latterly Ihave been so busy with my work in connection with the Saint Pancrasinstallation that I have had little opportunity of calling to see him. Butthe whole of his theory seems fantastic to me. The facts concerningDavidson stand on an altogether different footing, and I can testifypersonally to the accuracy of every detail I have given. 

 VIII. 

 THE LORD OF THE DYNAMOS. 

The chief attendant of the three dynamos that buzzed and rattled atCamberwell, and kept the electric railway going, came out of Yorkshire, and his name was James Holroyd. He was a practical electrician, but fondof whisky, a heavy, red-haired brute with irregular teeth. He doubted theexistence of the Deity, but accepted Carnot's cycle, and he had readShakespeare and found him weak in chemistry. His helper came out of themysterious East, and his name was Azuma-zi. But Holroyd called himPooh-bah. Holroyd liked a nigger help because he would stand kicking--ahabit with Holroyd--and did not pry into the machinery and try to learnthe ways of it. Certain odd possibilities of the negro mind brought intoabrupt contact with the crown of our civilisation Holroyd never fullyrealised, though just at the end he got some inkling of them. 

To define Azuma-zi was beyond ethnology. He was, perhaps, more negroidthan anything else, though his hair was curly rather than frizzy, and hisnose had a bridge. Moreover, his skin was brown rather than black, and thewhites of his eyes were yellow. His broad cheekbones and narrow chin gavehis face something of the viperine V. His head, too, was broad behind, andlow and narrow at the forehead, as if his brain had been twisted round inthe reverse way to a European's. He was short of stature and still shorterof English. In conversation he made numerous odd noises of no knownmarketable value, and his infrequent words were carved and wrought intoheraldic grotesqueness. Holroyd tried to elucidate his religious beliefs, and--especially after whisky--lectured to him against superstition andmissionaries. Azuma-zi, however, shirked the discussion of his gods, eventhough he was kicked for it. 

Azuma-zi had come, clad in white but insufficient raiment, out of thestoke-hole of the _Lord Clive_, from the Straits Settlements andbeyond, into London. He had heard even in his youth of the greatness andriches of London, where all the women are white and fair, and even thebeggars in the streets are white, and he had arrived, with newly-earnedgold coins in his pocket, to worship at the shrine of civilisation. Theday of his landing was a dismal one; the sky was dun, and a wind-worrieddrizzle filtered down to the greasy streets, but he plunged boldly intothe delights of Shadwell, and was presently cast up, shattered in health, civilised in costume, penniless, and, except in matters of the direstnecessity, practically a dumb animal, to toil for James Holroyd, and to bebullied by him in the dynamo shed at Camberwell. And to James Holroydbullying was a labour of love. 

There were three dynamos with their engines at Camberwell. The two thathave been there since the beginning are small machines; the larger one wasnew. The smaller machines made a reasonable noise; their straps hummedover the drums, every now and then the brushes buzzed and fizzled, and theair churned steadily, whoo! whoo! whoo! between their poles. One was loosein its foundations and kept the shed vibrating. But the big dynamo drownedthese little noises altogether with the sustained drone of its iron core, which somehow set part of the ironwork humming. The place made thevisitor's head reel with the throb, throb, throb of the engines, therotation of the big wheels, the spinning ball-valves, the occasionalspittings of the steam, and over all the deep, unceasing, surging note ofthe big dynamo. This last noise was from an engineering point of view adefect, but Azuma-zi accounted it unto the monster for mightiness andpride. 

If it were possible we would have the noises of that shed always about thereader as he reads, we would tell all our story to such an accompaniment. It was a steady stream of din, from which the ear picked out first onethread and then another; there was the intermittent snorting, panting, andseething of the steam engines, the suck and thud of their pistons, thedull beat on the air as the spokes of the great driving wheels came round, a note the leather straps made as they ran tighter and looser, and afretful tumult from the dynamos; and, over all, sometimes inaudible, asthe ear tired of it, and then creeping back upon the senses again, wasthis trombone note of the big machine. The floor never felt steady andquiet beneath one's feet, but quivered and jarred. It was a confusing, unsteady place, and enough to send anyone's thoughts jerking into oddzigzags. And for three months, while the big strike of the engineers wasin progress, Holroyd, who was a blackleg, and Azuma-zi, who was a mereblack, were never out of the stir and eddy of it, but slept and fed in thelittle wooden shanty between the shed and the gates. 

Holroyd delivered a theological lecture on the text of his big machinesoon after Azuma-zi came. He had to shout to be heard in the din. "Look atthat, " said Holroyd; "where's your 'eathen idol to match 'im?" AndAzuma-zi looked. For a moment Holroyd was inaudible, and then Azuma-ziheard: "Kill a hundred men. Twelve per cent, on the ordinary shares, " saidHolroyd, "and that's something like a Gord. "

Holroyd was proud of his big dynamo, and expatiated upon its size andpower to Azuma-zi until heaven knows what odd currents of thought that andthe incessant whirling and shindy set up within the curly black cranium. He would explain in the most graphic manner the dozen or so ways in whicha man might be killed by it, and once he gave Azuma-zi a shock as a sampleof its quality. After that, in the breathing-times of his labour--it washeavy labour, being not only his own, but most of Holroyd's--Azuma-ziwould sit and watch the big machine. Now and then the brushes wouldsparkle and spit blue flashes, at which Holroyd would swear, but all therest was as smooth and rhythmic as breathing. The band ran shouting overthe shaft, and ever behind one as one watched was the complacent thud ofthe piston. So it lived all day in this big airy shed, with him andHolroyd to wait upon it; not prisoned up and slaving to drive a ship asthe other engines he knew--mere captive devils of the British Solomon--hadbeen, but a machine enthroned. Those two smaller dynamos Azuma-zi by forceof contrast despised; the large one he privately christened the Lord ofthe Dynamos. They were fretful and irregular, but the big dynamo wassteady. How great it was! How serene and easy in its working! Greater andcalmer even than the Buddhas he had seen at Rangoon, and yet notmotionless, but living! The great black coils spun, spun, spun, the ringsran round under the brushes, and the deep note of its coil steadied thewhole. It affected Azuma-zi queerly. 

Azuma-zi was not fond of labour. He would sit about and watch the Lord ofthe Dynamos while Holroyd went away to persuade the yard porter to getwhisky, although his proper place was not in the dynamo shed but behindthe engines, and, moreover, if Holroyd caught him skulking he got hit forit with a rod of stout copper wire. He would go and stand close to thecolossus, and look up at the great leather band running overhead. Therewas a black patch on the band that came round, and it pleased him somehowamong all the clatter to watch this return again and again. Odd thoughtsspun with the whirl of it. Scientific people tell us that savages givesouls to rocks and trees, --and a machine is a thousand times more alivethan a rock or a tree. And Azuma-zi was practically a savage still; theveneer of civilisation lay no deeper than his slop suit, his bruises, andthe coal grime on his face and hands. His father before him had worshippeda meteoric stone, kindred blood, it may be, had splashed the broad wheelsof Juggernaut. 

He took every opportunity Holroyd gave him of touching and handling thegreat dynamo that was fascinating him. He polished and cleaned it untilthe metal parts were blinding in the sun. He felt a mysterious sense ofservice in doing this. He would go up to it and touch its spinning coilsgently. The gods he had worshipped were all far away. The people in Londonhid their gods. 

At last his dim feelings grew more distinct, and took shape in thoughts, and at last in acts. When he came into the roaring shed one morning hesalaamed to the Lord of the Dynamos, and then, when Holroyd was away, hewent and whispered to the thundering machine that he was its servant, andprayed it to have pity on him and save him from Holroyd. As he did so arare gleam of light came in through the open archway of the throbbingmachine-shed, and the Lord of the Dynamos, as he whirled and roared, wasradiant with pale gold. Then Azuma-zi knew that his service was acceptableto his Lord. After that he did not feel so lonely as he had done, and hehad indeed been very much alone in London. And even when his work-time wasover, which was rare, he loitered about the shed. 

Then, the next time Holroyd maltreated him, Azuma-zi went presently to theLord of the Dynamos and whispered, "Thou seest, O my Lord!" and the angrywhirr of the machinery seemed to answer him. Thereafter it appeared to himthat whenever Holroyd came into the shed a different note came into thesounds of the dynamo. "My Lord bides his time, " said Azuma-zi to himself. "The iniquity of the fool is not yet ripe. " And he waited and watched forthe day of reckoning. One day there was evidence of short circuiting, andHolroyd, making an unwary examination--it was in the afternoon--got arather severe shock. Azuma-zi from behind the engine saw him jump off andcurse at the peccant coil. 

"He is warned, " said Azuma-zi to himself. "Surely my Lord is verypatient. "

Holroyd had at first initiated his "nigger" into such elementaryconceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him to take temporarycharge of the shed in his absence. But when he noticed the manner in whichAzuma-zi hung about the monster he became suspicious. He dimly perceivedhis assistant was "up to something, " and connecting him with the anointingof the coils with oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issuedan edict, shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nighthat big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!" Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was plain sense anddecency to keep him away from it. 

Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing before theLord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm and kicked him as heturned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently stood behind the engine andglared at the back of the hated Holroyd, the noises of the machinery tooka new rhythm, and sounded like four words in his native tongue. 

It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi was mad. Theincessant din and whirl of the dynamo shed may have churned up his littlestore of knowledge and big store of superstitious fancy, at last, intosomething akin to frenzy. At any rate, when the idea of making Holroyd asacrifice to the Dynamo Fetich was thus suggested to him, it filled himwith a strange tumult of exultant emotion. 

That night the two men and their black shadows were alone in the shedtogether. The shed was lit with one big arc light that winked andflickered purple. The shadows lay black behind the dynamos, the ballgovernors of the engines whirled from light to darkness, and their pistonsbeat loud and steady. The world outside seen through the open end of theshed seemed incredibly dim and remote. It seemed absolutely silent, too, since the riot of the machinery drowned every external sound. Far away wasthe black fence of the yard with grey shadowy houses behind, and above wasthe deep blue sky and the pale little stars. Azuma-zi suddenly walkedacross the centre of the shed above which the leather bands were running, and went into the shadow by the big dynamo. Holroyd heard a click, and thespin of the armature changed. 

"What are you dewin' with that switch?" he bawled in surprise. "Han't Itold you----"

Then he saw the set expression of Azuma-zi's eyes as the Asiatic came outof the shadow towards him. 

In another moment the two men were grappling fiercely in front of thegreat dynamo. 

"You coffee-headed fool!" gasped Holroyd, with a brown hand at his throat. "Keep off those contact rings. " In another moment he was tripped andreeling back upon the Lord of the Dynamos. He instinctively loosened hisgrip upon his antagonist to save himself from the machine. 

The messenger, sent in furious haste from the station to find out what hadhappened in the dynamo shed, met Azuma-zi at the porter's lodge by thegate. Azuma-zi tried to explain something, but the messenger could makenothing of the black's incoherent English, and hurried on to the shed. The machines were all noisily at work, and nothing seemed to bedisarranged. There was, however, a queer smell of singed hair. Then he sawan odd-looking crumpled mass clinging to the front of the big dynamo, and, approaching, recognised the distorted remains of Holroyd. 

The man stared and hesitated a moment. Then he saw the face, and shut hiseyes convulsively. He turned on his heel before he opened them, so that heshould not see Holroyd again, and went out of the shed to get advice andhelp. 

When Azuma-zi saw Holroyd die in the grip of the Great Dynamo he had beena little scared about the consequences of his act. Yet he felt strangelyelated, and knew that the favour of the Lord Dynamo was upon him. His planwas already settled when he met the man coming from the station, and thescientific manager who speedily arrived on the scene jumped at the obviousconclusion of suicide. This expert scarcely noticed Azuma-zi, except toask a few questions. Did he see Holroyd kill himself? Azuma-zi explainedhe had been out of sight at the engine furnace until he heard a differencein the noise from the dynamo. It was not a difficult examination, beinguntinctured by suspicion. 

The distorted remains of Holroyd, which the electrician removed fromthe machine, were hastily covered by the porter with a coffee-stainedtable-cloth. Somebody, by a happy inspiration, fetched a medical man. Theexpert was chiefly anxious to get the machine at work again, for seven oreight trains had stopped midway in the stuffy tunnels of the electricrailway. Azuma-zi, answering or misunderstanding the questions of thepeople who had by authority or impudence come into the shed, was presentlysent back to the stoke-hole by the scientific manager. Of course a crowdcollected outside the gates of the yard--a crowd, for no known reason, always hovers for a day or two near the scene of a sudden death inLondon--two or three reporters percolated somehow into the engine-shed, and one even got to Azuma-zi; but the scientific expert cleared them outagain, being himself an amateur journalist. 

Presently the body was carried away, and public interest departed with it. Azuma-zi remained very quietly at his furnace, seeing over and over againin the coals a figure that wriggled violently and became still. An hourafter the murder, to any one coming into the shed it would have lookedexactly as if nothing remarkable had ever happened there. Peepingpresently from his engine-room the black saw the Lord Dynamo spin andwhirl beside his little brothers, and the driving wheels were beatinground, and the steam in the pistons went thud, thud, exactly as it hadbeen earlier in the evening. After all, from the mechanical point of view, it had been a most insignificant incident--the mere temporary deflectionof a current. But now the slender form and slender shadow of thescientific manager replaced the sturdy outline of Holroyd travelling upand down the lane of light upon the vibrating floor under the strapsbetween the engines and the dynamos. 

"Have I not served my Lord?" said Azuma-zi inaudibly, from his shadow, andthe note of the great dynamo rang out full and clear. As he looked at thebig whirling mechanism the strange fascination of it that had been alittle in abeyance since Holroyd's death resumed its sway. 

Never had Azuma-zi seen a man killed so swiftly and pitilessly. The bighumming machine had slain its victim without wavering for a second fromits steady beating. It was indeed a mighty god. 

The unconscious scientific manager stood with his back to him, scribblingon a piece of paper. His shadow lay at the foot of the monster. 

Was the Lord Dynamo still hungry? His servant was ready. 

Azuma-zi made a stealthy step forward; then stopped. The scientificmanager suddenly ceased his writing, walked down the shed to the endmostof the dynamos, and began to examine the brushes. 

Azuma-zi hesitated, and then slipped across noiselessly into the shadow bythe switch. There he waited. Presently the manager's footsteps could beheard returning. He stopped in his old position, unconscious of the stokercrouching ten feet away from him. Then the big dynamo suddenly fizzled, and in another moment Azuma-zi had sprung out of the darkness upon him. 

First, the scientific manager was gripped round the body and swung towardsthe big dynamo, then, kicking with his knee and forcing his antagonist'shead down with his hands, he loosened the grip on his waist and swunground away from the machine. Then the black grasped him again, putting acurly head against his chest, and they swayed and panted as it seemed foran age or so. Then the scientific manager was impelled to catch a blackear in his teeth and bite furiously. The black yelled hideously. 

They rolled over on the floor, and the black, who had apparently slippedfrom the vice of the teeth or parted with some ear--the scientific managerwondered which at the time--tried to throttle him. The scientific managerwas making some ineffectual efforts to claw something with his hands andto kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter amid the roar. 

The officer of the company who had entered stood staring as Azuma-zicaught the naked terminals in his hands, gave one horrible convulsion, andthen hung motionless from the machine, his face violently distorted. 

"I'm jolly glad you came in when you did, " said the scientific manager, still sitting on the floor. 

He looked at the still quivering figure. "It is not a nice death to die, apparently--but it is quick. "

The official was still staring at the body. He was a man of slowapprehension. 

There was a pause. 

The scientific manager got up on his feet rather awkwardly. He ran hisfingers along his collar thoughtfully, and moved his head to and froseveral times. 

"Poor Holroyd! I see now. " Then almost mechanically he went towards theswitch in the shadow and turned the current into the railway circuitagain. As he did so the singed body loosened its grip upon the machine andfell forward on its face. The core of the dynamo roared out loud andclear, and the armature beat the air. 

So ended prematurely the worship of the Dynamo Deity, perhaps the mostshort-lived of all religions. Yet withal it could at least boast aMartyrdom and a Human Sacrifice. 

 IX. 

 THE MOTH. 

Probably you have heard of Hapley--not W. T. Hapley, the son, but thecelebrated Hapley, the Hapley of _Periplaneta Hapliia_, Hapley theentomologist. 

If so you know at least of the great feud between Hapley and ProfessorPawkins, though certain of its consequences may be new to you. For thosewho have not, a word or two of explanation is necessary, which the idlereader may go over with a glancing eye, if his indolence so incline him. 

It is amazing how very widely diffused is the ignorance of such reallyimportant matters as this Hapley-Pawkins feud. Those epoch-makingcontroversies, again, that have convulsed the Geological Society are, Iverily believe, almost entirely unknown outside the fellowship of thatbody. I have heard men of fair general education even refer to the greatscenes at these meetings as vestry-meeting squabbles. Yet the great hateof the English and Scotch geologists has lasted now half a century, andhas "left deep and abundant marks upon the body of the science. " And thisHapley-Pawkins business, though perhaps a more personal affair, stirredpassions as profound, if not profounder. Your common man has no conceptionof the zeal that animates a scientific investigator, the fury ofcontradiction you can arouse in him. It is the _odium theologicum_ ina new form. There are men, for instance, who would gladly burn ProfessorRay Lankester at Smithfield for his treatment of the Mollusca in theEncyclopaedia. That fantastic extension of the Cephalopods to cover thePteropods ... But I wander from Hapley and Pawkins. 

It began years and years ago, with a revision of the Microlepidoptera(whatever these may be) by Pawkins, in which he extinguished a new speciescreated by Hapley. Hapley, who was always quarrelsome, replied by astinging impeachment of the entire classification of Pawkins. [A] Pawkinsin his "Rejoinder"[B] suggested that Hapley's microscope was as defectiveas his power of observation, and called him an "irresponsible meddler"--Hapley was not a professor at that time. Hapley in his retort, [C] spoke of"blundering collectors, " and described, as if inadvertently, Pawkins'revision as a "miracle of ineptitude. " It was war to the knife. However, it would scarcely interest the reader to detail how these two great menquarrelled, and how the split between them widened until from theMicrolepidoptera they were at war upon every open question in entomology. There were memorable occasions. At times the Royal Entomological Societymeetings resembled nothing so much as the Chamber of Deputies. On thewhole, I fancy Pawkins was nearer the truth than Hapley. But Hapley wasskilful with his rhetoric, had a turn for ridicule rare in a scientificman, was endowed with vast energy, and had a fine sense of injury in thematter of the extinguished species; while Pawkins was a man of dullpresence, prosy of speech, in shape not unlike a water-barrel, overconscientious with testimonials, and suspected of jobbing museumappointments. So the young men gathered round Hapley and applauded him. Itwas a long struggle, vicious from the beginning and growing at last topitiless antagonism. The successive turns of fortune, now an advantage toone side and now to another--now Hapley tormented by some success ofPawkins, and now Pawkins outshone by Hapley, belong rather to the historyof entomology than to this story. 

[Footnote A: "Remarks on a Recent Revision of Microlepidoptera. "_Quart. Journ. Entomological Soc. _, 1863. ]

[Footnote B: "Rejoinder to certain Remarks, " etc. _Ibid. _ 1864. ]

[Footnote C: "Further Remarks, " etc. _Ibid. _]

But in 1891 Pawkins, whose health had been bad for some time, publishedsome work upon the "mesoblast" of the Death's Head Moth. What themesoblast of the Death's Head Moth may be does not matter a rap in thisstory. But the work was far below his usual standard, and gave Hapley anopening he had coveted for years. He must have worked night and day tomake the most of his advantage. 

In an elaborate critique he rent Pawkins to tatters--one can fancy theman's disordered black hair, and his queer dark eyes flashing as he wentfor his antagonist--and Pawkins made a reply, halting, ineffectual, withpainful gaps of silence, and yet malignant. There was no mistaking hiswill to wound Hapley, nor his incapacity to do it. But few of those whoheard him--I was absent from that meeting--realised how ill the man was. 

Hapley got his opponent down, and meant to finish him. He followed with asimply brutal attack upon Pawkins, in the form of a paper upon thedevelopment of moths in general, a paper showing evidence of a mostextraordinary amount of mental labour, and yet couched in a violentlycontroversial tone. Violent as it was, an editorial note witnesses that itwas modified. It must have covered Pawkins with shame and confusion offace. It left no loophole; it was murderous in argument, and utterlycontemptuous in tone; an awful thing for the declining years of a man'scareer. 

The world of entomologists waited breathlessly for the rejoinder fromPawkins. He would try one, for Pawkins had always been game. But when itcame it surprised them. For the rejoinder of Pawkins was to catchinfluenza, proceed to pneumonia, and die. 

It was perhaps as effectual a reply as he could make under thecircumstances, and largely turned the current of feeling against Hapley. The very people who had most gleefully cheered on those gladiators becameserious at the consequence. There could be no reasonable doubt the fret ofthe defeat had contributed to the death of Pawkins. There was a limit evento scientific controversy, said serious people. Another crushing attackwas already in the press and appeared on the day before the funeral. Idon't think Hapley exerted himself to stop it. People remembered howHapley had hounded down his rival, and forgot that rival's defects. Scathing satire reads ill over fresh mould. The thing provoked comment inthe daily papers. This it was that made me think that you had probablyheard of Hapley and this controversy. But, as I have already remarked, scientific workers live very much in a world of their own; half thepeople, I dare say, who go along Piccadilly to the Academy every year, could not tell you where the learned societies abide. Many even think thatresearch is a kind of happy-family cage in which all kinds of men lie downtogether in peace. 

In his private thoughts Hapley could not forgive Pawkins for dying. Inthe first place, it was a mean dodge to escape the absolute pulverisationHapley had in hand for him, and in the second, it left Hapley's mind witha queer gap in it. For twenty years he had worked hard, sometimes farinto the night, and seven days a week, with microscope, scalpel, collecting-net, and pen, and almost entirely with reference to Pawkins. The European reputation he had won had come as an incident in that greatantipathy. He had gradually worked up to a climax in this lastcontroversy. It had killed Pawkins, but it had also thrown Hapley out ofgear, so to speak, and his doctor advised him to give up work for a time, and rest. So Hapley went down into a quiet village in Kent, and thoughtday and night of Pawkins, and good things it was now impossible to sayabout him. 

At last Hapley began to realise in what direction the pre-occupationtended. He determined to make a fight for it, and started by trying toread novels. But he could not get his mind off Pawkins, white in the faceand making his last speech--every sentence a beautiful opening for Hapley. He turned to fiction--and found it had no grip on him. He read the "IslandNights' Entertainments" until his "sense of causation" was shocked beyondendurance by the Bottle Imp. Then he went to Kipling, and found he "provednothing, " besides being irreverent and vulgar. These scientific peoplehave their limitations. Then unhappily, he tried Besant's "Inner House, "and the opening chapter set his mind upon learned societies and Pawkins atonce. 

So Hapley turned to chess, and found it a little more soothing. He soonmastered the moves and the chief gambits and commoner closing positions, and began to beat the Vicar. But then the cylindrical contours of theopposite king began to resemble Pawkins standing up and gaspingineffectually against check-mate, and Hapley decided to give up chess. 

Perhaps the study of some new branch of science would after all be betterdiversion. The best rest is change of occupation. Hapley determined toplunge at diatoms, and had one of his smaller microscopes and Halibut'smonograph sent down from London. He thought that perhaps if he could getup a vigorous quarrel with Halibut, he might be able to begin life afreshand forget Pawkins. And very soon he was hard at work in his habitualstrenuous fashion, at these microscopic denizens of the way-side pool. 

It was on the third day of the diatoms that Hapley became aware of a noveladdition to the local fauna. He was working late at the microscope, andthe only light in the room was the brilliant little lamp with the specialform of green shade. Like all experienced microscopists, he kept both eyesopen. It is the only way to avoid excessive fatigue. One eye was over theinstrument, and bright and distinct before that was the circular field ofthe microscope, across which a brown diatom was slowly moving. With theother eye Hapley saw, as it were, without seeing. He was only dimlyconscious of the brass side of the instrument, the illuminated part of thetable-cloth, a sheet of notepaper, the foot of the lamp, and the darkenedroom beyond. 

Suddenly his attention drifted from one eye to the other. The table-clothwas of the material called tapestry by shopmen, and rather brightlycoloured. The pattern was in gold, with a small amount of crimson and paleblue upon a greyish ground. At one point the pattern seemed displaced, andthere was a vibrating movement of the colours at this point. 

Hapley suddenly moved his head back and looked with both eyes. His mouthfell open with astonishment. 

It was a large moth or butterfly; its wings spread in butterfly fashion!

It was strange it should be in the room at all, for the windows wereclosed. Strange that it should not have attracted his attention whenfluttering to its present position. Strange that it should match thetable-cloth. Stranger far that to him, Hapley, the great entomologist, itwas altogether unknown. There was no delusion. It was crawling slowlytowards the foot of the lamp. 

"New Genus, by heavens! And in England!" said Hapley, staring. 

Then he suddenly thought of Pawkins. Nothing would have maddened Pawkinsmore... And Pawkins was dead!

Something about the head and body of the insect became singularlysuggestive of Pawkins, just as the chess king had been. 

"Confound Pawkins!" said Hapley. "But I must catch this. " And lookinground him for some means of capturing the moth, he rose slowly out of hischair. Suddenly the insect rose, struck the edge of the lampshade--Hapleyheard the "ping"--and vanished into the shadow. 

In a moment Hapley had whipped off the shade, so that the whole room wasilluminated. The thing had disappeared, but soon his practised eyedetected it upon the wall-paper near the door. He went towards it poisingthe lamp-shade for capture. Before he was within striking distance, however, it had risen and was fluttering round the room. After the fashionof its kind, it flew with sudden starts and turns, seeming to vanish hereand reappear there. Once Hapley struck, and missed; then again. 

The third time he hit his microscope. The instrument swayed, struck andoverturned the lamp, and fell noisily upon the floor. The lamp turned overon the table and, very luckily, went out. Hapley was left in the dark. With a start he felt the strange moth blunder into his face. 

It was maddening. He had no lights. If he opened the door of the room thething would get away. In the darkness he saw Pawkins quite distinctlylaughing at him. Pawkins had ever an oily laugh. He swore furiously andstamped his foot on the floor. 

There was a timid rapping at the door. 

Then it opened, perhaps a foot, and very slowly. The alarmed face of thelandlady appeared behind a pink candle flame; she wore a night-cap overher grey hair and had some purple garment over her shoulders. "What_was_ that fearful smash?" she said. "Has anything----" The strangemoth appeared fluttering about the chink of the door. "Shut that door!"said Hapley, and suddenly rushed at her. 

The door slammed hastily. Hapley was left alone in the dark. Then in thepause he heard his landlady scuttle upstairs, lock her door, and dragsomething heavy across the room and put against it. 

It became evident to Hapley that his conduct and appearance had beenstrange and alarming. Confound the moth! and Pawkins! However, it was apity to lose the moth now. He felt his way into the hall and found thematches, after sending his hat down upon the floor with a noise like adrum. With the lighted candle he returned to the sitting-room. No moth wasto be seen. Yet once for a moment it seemed that the thing was flutteringround his head. Hapley very suddenly decided to give up the moth and go tobed. But he was excited. All night long his sleep was broken by dreams ofthe moth, Pawkins, and his landlady. Twice in the night he turned out andsoused his head in cold water. 

One thing was very clear to him. His landlady could not possiblyunderstand about the strange moth, especially as he had failed to catchit. No one but an entomologist would understand quite how he felt. She wasprobably frightened at his behaviour, and yet he failed to see how hecould explain it. He decided to say nothing further about the events oflast night. After breakfast he saw her in her garden, and decided to goout and talk to reassure her. He talked to her about beans and potatoes, bees, caterpillars, and the price of fruit. She replied in her usualmanner, but she looked at him a little suspiciously, and kept walking ashe walked, so that there was always a bed of flowers, or a row of beans, or something of the sort, between them. After a while he began to feelsingularly irritated at this, and to conceal his vexation went indoors andpresently went out for a walk. 

The moth, or butterfly, trailing an odd flavour of Pawkins with it, keptcoming into that walk, though he did his best to keep his mind off it. Once he saw it quite distinctly, with its wings flattened out, upon theold stone wall that runs along the west edge of the park, but going up toit he found it was only two lumps of grey and yellow lichen. "This, " saidHapley, "is the reverse of mimicry. Instead of a butterfly looking like astone, here is a stone looking like a butterfly!" Once something hoveredand fluttered round his head, but by an effort of will he drove thatimpression out of his mind again. 

In the afternoon Hapley called upon the Vicar, and argued with him upontheological questions. They sat in the little arbour covered with briar, and smoked as they wrangled. "Look at that moth!" said Hapley, suddenly, pointing to the edge of the wooden table. 

"Where?" said the Vicar. 

"You don't see a moth on the edge of the table there?" said Hapley. 

"Certainly not, " said the Vicar. 

Hapley was thunderstruck. He gasped. The Vicar was staring at him. Clearlythe man saw nothing. "The eye of faith is no better than the eye ofscience, " said Hapley awkwardly. 

"I don't see your point, " said the Vicar, thinking it was part of theargument. 

That night Hapley found the moth crawling over his counterpane. He sat onthe edge of the bed in his shirt sleeves and reasoned with himself. Was itpure hallucination? He knew he was slipping, and he battled for his sanitywith the same silent energy he had formerly displayed against Pawkins. Sopersistent is mental habit, that he felt as if it were still a strugglewith Pawkins. He was well versed in psychology. He knew that such visualillusions do come as a result of mental strain. But the point was, he didnot only _see_ the moth, he had heard it when it touched the edge ofthe lampshade, and afterwards when it hit against the wall, and he hadfelt it strike his face in the dark. 

He looked at it. It was not at all dreamlike, but perfectly clear andsolid-looking in the candle-light. He saw the hairy body, and the shortfeathery antennae, the jointed legs, even a place where the down wasrubbed from the wing. He suddenly felt angry with himself for being afraidof a little insect. 

His landlady had got the servant to sleep with her that night, because shewas afraid to be alone. In addition she had locked the door, and put thechest of drawers against it. They listened and talked in whispers afterthey had gone to bed, but nothing occurred to alarm them. About eleventhey had ventured to put the candle out, and had both dozed off to sleep. They woke up with a start, and sat up in bed, listening in the darkness. 

Then they heard slippered feet going to and fro in Hapley's room. A chairwas overturned, and there was a violent dab at the wall. Then a chinamantel ornament smashed upon the fender. Suddenly the door of the roomopened, and they heard him upon the landing. They clung to one another, listening. He seemed to be dancing upon the staircase. Now he would godown three or four steps quickly, then up again, then hurry down into thehall. They heard the umbrella stand go over, and the fanlight break. Thenthe bolt shot and the chain rattled. He was opening the door. 

They hurried to the window. It was a dim grey night; an almost unbrokensheet of watery cloud was sweeping across the moon, and the hedge andtrees in front of the house were black against the pale roadway. They sawHapley, looking like a ghost in his shirt and white trousers, running toand fro in the road, and beating the air. Now he would stop, now he woulddart very rapidly at something invisible, now he would move upon it withstealthy strides. At last he went out of sight up the road towards thedown. Then, while they argued who should go down and lock the door, hereturned. He was walking very fast, and he came straight into the house, closed the door carefully, and went quietly up to his bedroom. Theneverything was silent. 

"Mrs. Colville, " said Hapley, calling down the staircase next morning, "Ihope I did not alarm you last night. "

"You may well ask that!" said Mrs. Colville. 

"The fact is, I am a sleep-walker, and the last two nights I have beenwithout my sleeping mixture. There is nothing to be alarmed about, really. I am sorry I made such an ass of myself. I will go over the down toShoreham, and get some stuff to make me sleep soundly. I ought to havedone that yesterday. "

But half-way over the down, by the chalk pits, the moth came upon Hapleyagain. He went on, trying to keep his mind upon chess problems, but it wasno good. The thing fluttered into his face, and he struck at it with hishat in self-defence. Then rage, the old rage--the rage he had so oftenfelt against Pawkins--came upon him again. He went on, leaping andstriking at the eddying insect. Suddenly he trod on nothing, and fellheadlong. 

There was a gap in his sensations, and Hapley found himself sitting on theheap of flints in front of the opening of the chalk-pits, with a legtwisted back under him. The strange moth was still fluttering round hishead. He struck at it with his hand, and turning his head saw two menapproaching him. One was the village doctor. It occurred to Hapley thatthis was lucky. Then it came into his mind with extraordinary vividness, that no one would ever be able to see the strange moth except himself, andthat it behoved him to keep silent about it. 

Late that night, however, after his broken leg was set, he was feverishand forgot his self-restraint. He was lying flat on his bed, and he beganto run his eyes round the room to see if the moth was still about. Hetried not to do this, but it was no good. He soon caught sight of thething resting close to his hand, by the night-light, on the greentable-cloth. The wings quivered. With a sudden wave of anger he smote atit with his fist, and the nurse woke up with a shriek. He had missed it. 

"That moth!" he said; and then, "It was fancy. Nothing!"

All the time he could see quite clearly the insect going round the corniceand darting across the room, and he could also see that the nurse sawnothing of it and looked at him strangely. He must keep himself in hand. He knew he was a lost man if he did not keep himself in hand. But as thenight waned the fever grew upon him, and the very dread he had of seeingthe moth made him see it. About five, just as the dawn was grey, he triedto get out of bed and catch it, though his leg was afire with pain. Thenurse had to struggle with him. 

On account of this, they tied him down to the bed. At this the moth grewbolder, and once he felt it settle in his hair. Then, because he struckout violently with his arms, they tied these also. At this the moth cameand crawled over his face, and Hapley wept, swore, screamed, prayed forthem to take it off him, unavailingly. 

The doctor was a blockhead, a just-qualified general practitioner, andquite ignorant of mental science. He simply said there was no moth. Had hepossessed the wit, he might still, perhaps, have saved Hapley from hisfate by entering into his delusion, and covering his face with gauze, ashe prayed might be done. But, as I say, the doctor was a blockhead, anduntil the leg was healed Hapley was kept tied to his bed, and with theimaginary moth crawling over him. It never left him while he was awake andit grew to a monster in his dreams. While he was awake he longed forsleep, and from sleep he awoke screaming. 

So now Hapley is spending the remainder of his days in a padded room, worried by a moth that no one else can see. The asylum doctor calls ithallucination; but Hapley, when he is in his easier mood, and can talk, says it is the ghost of Pawkins, and consequently a unique specimen andwell worth the trouble of catching. 

 X. 

 THE TREASURE IN THE FOREST. 

The canoe was now approaching the land. The bay opened out, and a gap inthe white surf of the reef marked where the little river ran out to thesea; the thicker and deeper green of the virgin forest showed its coursedown the distant hill slope. The forest here came close to the beach. Farbeyond, dim and almost cloudlike in texture, rose the mountains, likesuddenly frozen waves. The sea was still save for an almost imperceptibleswell. The sky blazed. 

The man with the carved paddle stopped. "It should be somewhere here, " hesaid. He shipped the paddle and held his arms out straight before him. 

The other man had been in the fore part of the canoe, closely scrutinisingthe land. He had a sheet of yellow paper on his knee. 

"Come and look at this, Evans, " he said. 

Both men spoke in low tones, and their lips were hard and dry. 

The man called Evans came swaying along the canoe until he could look overhis companion's shoulder. 

The paper had the appearance of a rough map. By much folding it wascreased and worn to the pitch of separation, and the second man held thediscoloured fragments together where they had parted. On it one coulddimly make out, in almost obliterated pencil, the outline of the bay. 

"Here, " said Evans, "is the reef, and here is the gap. " He ran histhumb-nail over the chart. 

"This curved and twisting line is the river--I could do with a drinknow!--and this star is the place. "

"You see this dotted line, " said the man with the map; "it is a straightline, and runs from the opening of the reef to a clump of palm-trees. Thestar comes just where it cuts the river. We must mark the place as we gointo the lagoon. "

"It's queer, " said Evans, after a pause, "what these little marks downhere are for. It looks like the plan of a house or something; but what allthese little dashes, pointing this way and that, may mean I can't get anotion. And what's the writing?"

"Chinese, " said the man with the map. 

"Of course! _He_ was a Chinee, " said Evans. 

"They all were, " said the man with the map. 

They both sat for some minutes staring at the land, while the canoedrifted slowly. Then Evans looked towards the paddle. 

"Your turn with the paddle now, Hooker, " said he. 

And his companion quietly folded up his map, put it in his pocket, passedEvans carefully, and began to paddle. His movements were languid, likethose of a man whose strength was nearly exhausted. 

Evans sat with his eyes half closed, watching the frothy breakwater of thecoral creep nearer and nearer. The sky was like a furnace, for the sun wasnear the zenith. Though they were so near the Treasure he did not feel theexaltation he had anticipated. The intense excitement of the struggle forthe plan, and the long night voyage from the mainland in the unprovisionedcanoe had, to use his own expression, "taken it out of him. " He tried toarouse himself by directing his mind to the ingots the Chinamen had spokenof, but it would not rest there; it came back headlong to the thought ofsweet water rippling in the river, and to the almost unendurable drynessof his lips and throat. The rhythmic wash of the sea upon the reef wasbecoming audible now, and it had a pleasant sound in his ears; the waterwashed along the side of the canoe, and the paddle dripped between eachstroke. Presently he began to doze. 

He was still dimly conscious of the island, but a queer dream textureinterwove with his sensations. Once again it was the night when he andHooker had hit upon the Chinamen's secret; he saw the moonlit trees, thelittle fire burning, and the black figures of the three Chinamen--silveredon one side by moonlight, and on the other glowing from the firelight--andheard them talking together in pigeon-English--for they came fromdifferent provinces. Hooker had caught the drift of their talk first, andhad motioned to him to listen. Fragments of the conversation wereinaudible, and fragments incomprehensible. A Spanish galleon from thePhilippines hopelessly aground, and its treasure buried against the day ofreturn, lay in the background of the story; a shipwrecked crew thinned bydisease, a quarrel or so, and the needs of discipline, and at last takingto their boats never to be heard of again. Then Chang-hi, only a yearsince, wandering ashore, had happened upon the ingots hidden for twohundred years, had deserted his junk, and reburied them with infinitetoil, single-handed but very safe. He laid great stress on the safety--itwas a secret of his. Now he wanted help to return and exhume them. Presently the little map fluttered and the voices sank. A fine story fortwo, stranded British wastrels to hear! Evans' dream shifted to the momentwhen he had Chang-hi's pigtail in his hand. The life of a Chinaman isscarcely sacred like a European's. The cunning little face of Chang-hi, first keen and furious like a startled snake, and then fearful, treacherous, and pitiful, became overwhelmingly prominent in the dream. Atthe end Chang-hi had grinned, a most incomprehensible and startling grin. Abruptly things became very unpleasant, as they will do at times indreams. Chang-hi gibbered and threatened him. He saw in his dream heapsand heaps of gold, and Chang-hi intervening and struggling to hold himback from it. He took Chang-hi by the pig-tail--how big the yellow brutewas, and how he struggled and grinned! He kept growing bigger, too. Thenthe bright heaps of gold turned to a roaring furnace, and a vast devil, surprisingly like Chang-hi, but with a huge black tail, began to feed himwith coals. They burnt his mouth horribly. Another devil was shouting hisname: "Evans, Evans, you sleepy fool!"--or was it Hooker?

He woke up. They were in the mouth of the lagoon. 

"There are the three palm-trees. It must be in a line with that clump ofbushes, " said his companion. "Mark that. If we, go to those bushes andthen strike into the bush in a straight line from here, we shall come toit when we come to the stream. "

They could see now where the mouth of the stream opened out. At the sightof it Evans revived. "Hurry up, man, " he said, "or by heaven I shall haveto drink sea water!" He gnawed his hand and stared at the gleam of silveramong the rocks and green tangle. 

Presently he turned almost fiercely upon Hooker. "Give _me_ thepaddle, " he said. 

So they reached the river mouth. A little way up Hooker took some water inthe hollow of his hand, tasted it, and spat it out. A little further hetried again. "This will do, " he said, and they began drinking eagerly. 

"Curse this!" said Evans suddenly. "It's too slow. " And, leaningdangerously over the fore part of the canoe, he began to suck up the waterwith his lips. 

Presently they made an end of drinking, and, running the canoe into alittle creek, were about to land among the thick growth that overhung thewater. 

"We shall have to scramble through this to the beach to find our bushesand get the line to the place, " said Evans. 

"We had better paddle round, " said Hooker. 

So they pushed out again into the river and paddled back down it to thesea, and along the shore to the place where the clump of bushes grew. Herethey landed, pulled the light canoe far up the beach, and then went uptowards the edge of the jungle until they could see the opening of thereef and the bushes in a straight line. Evans had taken a native implementout of the canoe. It was L-shaped, and the transverse piece was armed withpolished stone. Hooker carried the paddle. "It is straight now in thisdirection, " said he; "we must push through this till we strike the stream. Then we must prospect. "

They pushed through a close tangle of reeds, broad fronds, and youngtrees, and at first it was toilsome going, but very speedily the treesbecame larger and the ground beneath them opened out. The blaze of thesunlight was replaced by insensible degrees by cool shadow. The treesbecame at last vast pillars that rose up to a canopy of greenery faroverhead. Dim white flowers hung from their stems, and ropy creepers swungfrom tree to tree. The shadow deepened. On the ground, blotched fungi anda red-brown incrustation became frequent. 

Evans shivered. "It seems almost cold here after the blaze outside. "

"I hope we are keeping to the straight, " said Hooker. 

Presently they saw, far ahead, a gap in the sombre darkness where whiteshafts of hot sunlight smote into the forest. There also was brilliantgreen undergrowth and coloured flowers. Then they heard the rush of water. 

"Here is the river. We should be close to it now, " said Hooker. 

The vegetation was thick by the river bank. Great plants, as yet unnamed, grew among the roots of the big trees, and spread rosettes of huge greenfans towards the strip of sky. Many flowers and a creeper with shinyfoliage clung to the exposed stems. On the water of the broad, quiet poolwhich the treasure-seekers now overlooked there floated big oval leavesand a waxen, pinkish-white flower not unlike a water-lily. Further, as theriver bent away from them, the water suddenly frothed and became noisy ina rapid. 

"Well?" said Evans. 

"We have swerved a little from the straight, " said Hooker. "That was to beexpected. "

He turned and looked into the dim cool shadows of the silent forest behindthem. "If we beat a little way up and down the stream we should come tosomething. "

"You said--" began Evans. 

"_He_ said there was a heap of stones, " said Hooker. 

The two men looked at each other for a moment. 

"Let us try a little down-stream first, " said Evans. 

They advanced slowly, looking curiously about them. Suddenly Evansstopped. "What the devil's that?" he said. 

Hooker followed his finger. "Something blue, " he said. It had come intoview as they topped a gentle swell of the ground. Then he began todistinguish what it was. 

He advanced suddenly with hasty steps, until the body that belonged to thelimp hand and arm had become visible. His grip tightened on the implementhe carried. The thing was the figure of a Chinaman lying on his face. The_abandon_ of the pose was unmistakable. 

The two men drew closer together, and stood staring silently at thisominous dead body. It lay in a clear space among the trees. Near by was aspade after the Chinese pattern, and further off lay a scattered heap ofstones, close to a freshly dug hole. 

"Somebody has been here before, " said Hooker, clearing his throat. 

Then suddenly Evans began to swear and rave, and stamp upon the ground. 

Hooker turned white but said nothing. He advanced towards the prostratebody. He saw the neck was puffed and purple, and the hands and anklesswollen. "Pah!" he said, and suddenly turned away and went towards theexcavation. He gave a cry of surprise. He shouted to Evans, who wasfollowing him slowly. 

"You fool! It's all right. It's here still. " Then he turned again andlooked at the dead Chinaman, and then again at the hole. 

Evans hurried to the hole. Already half exposed by the ill-fated wretchbeside them lay a number of dull yellow bars. He bent down in the hole, and, clearing off the soil with his bare hands, hastily pulled one of theheavy masses out. As he did so a little thorn pricked his hand. He pulledthe delicate spike out with his fingers and lifted the ingot. 

"Only gold or lead could weigh like this, " he said exultantly. 

Hooker was still looking at the dead Chinaman. He was puzzled. 

"He stole a march on his friends, " he said at last. "He came here alone, and some poisonous snake has killed him... I wonder how he found theplace. "

Evans stood with the ingot in his hands. What did a dead Chinaman signify?"We shall have to take this stuff to the mainland piecemeal, and bury itthere for a while. How shall we get it to the canoe?"

He took his jacket off and spread it on the ground, and flung two or threeingots into it. Presently he found that another little thorn had puncturedhis skin. 

"This is as much as we can carry, " said he. Then suddenly, with a queerrush of irritation, "What are you staring at?"

Hooker turned to him. "I can't stand him ... " He nodded towards thecorpse. "It's so like----"

"Rubbish!" said Evans. "All Chinamen are alike. "

Hooker looked into his face. "I'm going to bury _that_, anyhow, before I lend a hand with this stuff. "

"Don't be a fool, Hooker, " said Evans, "Let that mass of corruption bide. "

Hooker hesitated, and then his eye went carefully over the brown soilabout them. "It scares me somehow, " he said. 

"The thing is, " said Evans, "what to do with these ingots. Shall were-bury them over here, or take them across the strait in the canoe?"

Hooker thought. His puzzled gaze wandered among the tall tree-trunks, andup into the remote sunlit greenery overhead. He shivered again as his eyerested upon the blue figure of the Chinaman. He stared searchingly amongthe grey depths between the trees. 

"What's come to you, Hooker?" said Evans. "Have you lost your wits?"

"Let's get the gold out of this place, anyhow, " said Hooker. 

He took the ends of the collar of the coat in his hands, and Evans tookthe opposite corners, and they lifted the mass. "Which way?" said Evans. "To the canoe?"

"It's queer, " said Evans, when they had advanced only a few steps, "but myarms ache still with that paddling. "

"Curse it!" he said. "But they ache! I must rest. "

They let the coat down, Evans' face was white, and little drops of sweatstood out upon his forehead. "It's stuffy, somehow, in this forest. "

Then with an abrupt transition to unreasonable anger: "What is the good ofwaiting here all the day? Lend a hand, I say! You have done nothing butmoon since we saw the dead Chinaman. "

Hooker was looking steadfastly at his companion's face. He helped raisethe coat bearing the ingots, and they went forward perhaps a hundred yardsin silence. Evans began to breathe heavily. "Can't you speak?" he said. 

"What's the matter with you?" said Hooker. 

Evans stumbled, and then with a sudden curse flung the coat from him. Hestood for a moment staring at Hooker, and then with a groan clutched athis own throat. 

"Don't come near me, " he said, and went and leant against a tree. Then ina steadier voice, "I'll be better in a minute. "

Presently his grip upon the trunk loosened, and he slipped slowly down thestem of the tree until he was a crumpled heap at its foot. His hands wereclenched convulsively. His face became distorted with pain. Hookerapproached him. 

"Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" said Evans in a stifled voice. "Put thegold back on the coat. "

"Can't I do anything for you?" said Hooker. 

"Put the gold back on the coat. "

As Hooker handled the ingots he felt a little prick on the ball of histhumb. He looked at his hand and saw a slender thorn, perhaps two inchesin length. 

Evans gave an inarticulate cry and rolled over. 

Hooker's jaw dropped. He stared at the thorn for a moment with dilatedeyes. Then he looked at Evans, who was now crumpled together on theground, his back bending and straightening spasmodically. Then he lookedthrough the pillars of the trees and net-work of creeper stems, to wherein the dim grey shadow the blue-clad body of the Chinaman was stillindistinctly visible. He thought of the little dashes in the corner of theplan, and in a moment he understood. 

"God help me!" he said. For the thorns were similar to those the Dyakspoison and use in their blowing-tubes. He understood now what Chang-hi'sassurance of the safety of his treasure meant. He understood that grinnow. 

"Evans!" he cried. 

But Evans was silent and motionless, save for a horrible spasmodictwitching of his limbs. A profound silence brooded over the forest. 

Then Hooker began to suck furiously at the little pink spot on the ball ofhis thumb--sucking for dear life. Presently he felt a strange aching painin his arms and shoulders, and his fingers seemed difficult to bend. Thenhe knew that sucking was no good. 

Abruptly he stopped, and sitting down by the pile of ingots, and restinghis chin upon his hands and his elbows upon his knees, stared at thedistorted but still quivering body of his companion. Chang-hi's grin cameinto his mind again. The dull pain spread towards his throat and grewslowly in intensity. Far above him a faint breeze stirred the greenery, and the white petals of some unknown flower came floating down through thegloom. 

 XI. 

 THE STORY OF THE LATE MR. ELVESHAM. 

I set this story down, not expecting it will be believed, but, ifpossible, to prepare a way of escape for the next victim. He, perhaps, mayprofit by my misfortune. My own case, I know, is hopeless, and I am now insome measure prepared to meet my fate. 

My name is Edward George Eden. I was born at Trentham, in Staffordshire, my father being employed in the gardens there. I lost my mother when I wasthree years old, and my father when I was five, my uncle, George Eden, then adopting me as his own son. He was a single man, self-educated, andwell-known in Birmingham as an enterprising journalist; he educated megenerously, fired my ambition to succeed in the world, and at his death, which happened four years ago, left me his entire fortune, a matter ofabout five hundred pounds after all outgoing charges were paid. I was theneighteen. He advised me in his will to expend the money in completing myeducation. I had already chosen the profession of medicine, and throughhis posthumous generosity and my good fortune in a scholarshipcompetition, I became a medical student at University College, London. Atthe time of the beginning of my story I lodged at 11A University Street ina little upper room, very shabbily furnished and draughty, overlooking theback of Shoolbred's premises. I used this little room both to live in andsleep in, because I was anxious to eke out my means to the very lastshillings-worth. 

I was taking a pair of shoes to be mended at a shop in the Tottenham CourtRoad when I first encountered the little old man with the yellow face, with whom my life has now become so inextricably entangled. He wasstanding on the kerb, and staring at the number on the door in a doubtfulway, as I opened it. His eyes--they were dull grey eyes, and reddish underthe rims--fell to my face, and his countenance immediately assumed anexpression of corrugated amiability. 

"You come, " he said, "apt to the moment. I had forgotten the number ofyour house. How do you do, Mr. Eden?"

I was a little astonished at his familiar address, for I had never seteyes on the man before. I was a little annoyed, too, at his catching mewith my boots under my arm. He noticed my lack of cordiality. 

"Wonder who the deuce I am, eh? A friend, let me assure you. I have seenyou before, though you haven't seen me. Is there anywhere where I can talkto you?"

I hesitated. The shabbiness of my room upstairs was not a matter for everystranger. "Perhaps, " said I, "we might walk down the street. I'munfortunately prevented--" My gesture explained the sentence before I hadspoken it. 

"The very thing, " he said, and faced this way, and then that. "The street?Which way shall we go?" I slipped my boots down in the passage. "Lookhere!" he said abruptly; "this business of mine is a rigmarole. Come andlunch with me, Mr. Eden. I'm an old man, a very old man, and not good atexplanations, and what with my piping voice and the clatter of thetraffic----"

He laid a persuasive skinny hand that trembled a little upon my arm. 

I was not so old that an old man might not treat me to a lunch. Yet at thesame time I was not altogether pleased by this abrupt invitation. "I hadrather----" I began. "But I had rather, " he said, catching me up, "and acertain civility is surely due to my grey hairs. "

And so I consented, and went with him. 

He took me to Blavitiski's; I had to walk slowly to accommodate myself tohis paces; and over such a lunch as I had never tasted before, he fendedoff my leading question, and I took a better note of his appearance. Hisclean-shaven face was lean and wrinkled, his shrivelled, lips fell over aset of false teeth, and his white hair was thin and rather long; he seemedsmall to me, --though indeed, most people seemed small to me, --and hisshoulders were rounded and bent. And watching him, I could not help butobserve that he too was taking note of me, running his eyes, with acurious touch of greed in them, over me, from my broad shoulders to mysuntanned hands, and up to my freckled face again. "And now, " said he, aswe lit our cigarettes, "I must tell you of the business in hand. 

"I must tell you, then, that I am an old man, a very old man. " He pausedmomentarily. "And it happens that I have money that I must presently beleaving, and never a child have I to leave it to. " I thought of theconfidence trick, and resolved I would be on the alert for the vestiges ofmy five hundred pounds. He proceeded to enlarge on his loneliness, and thetrouble he had to find a proper disposition of his money. "I have weighedthis plan and that plan, charities, institutions, and scholarships, andlibraries, and I have come to this conclusion at last, "--he fixed his eyeson my face, --"that I will find some young fellow, ambitious, pure-minded, and poor, healthy in body and healthy in mind, and, in short, make him myheir, give him all that I have. " He repeated, "Give him all that I have. So that he will suddenly be lifted out of all the trouble and struggle inwhich his sympathies have been educated, to freedom and influence. "

I tried to seem disinterested. With a transparent hypocrisy I said, "Andyou want my help, my professional services maybe, to find that person. "

He smiled, and looked at me over his cigarette, and I laughed at his quietexposure of my modest pretence. 

"What a career such a man might have!" he said. "It fills me with envy tothink how I have accumulated that another man may spend----

"But there are conditions, of course, burdens to be imposed. He must, forinstance, take my name. You cannot expect everything without some return. And I must go into all the circumstances of his life before I can accepthim. He _must_ be sound. I must know his heredity, how his parentsand grandparents died, have the strictest inquiries made into his privatemorals. "

This modified my secret congratulations a little. 

"And do I understand, " said I, "that I----"

"Yes, " he said, almost fiercely. "You. _You_. "

I answered never a word. My imagination was dancing wildly, my innatescepticism was useless to modify its transports. There was not a particleof gratitude in my mind--I did not know what to say nor how to say it. "But why me in particular?" I said at last. 

He had chanced to hear of me from Professor Haslar; he said, as atypically sound and sane young man, and he wished, as far as possible, toleave his money where health and integrity were assured. 

That was my first meeting with the little old man. He was mysterious abouthimself; he would not give his name yet, he said, and after I had answeredsome questions of his, he left me at the Blavitiski portal. I noticed thathe drew a handful of gold coins from his pocket when it came to paying forthe lunch. His insistence upon bodily health was curious. In accordancewith an arrangement we had made I applied that day for a life policy inthe Loyal Insurance Company for a large sum, and I was exhaustivelyoverhauled by the medical advisers of that company in the subsequent week. Even that did not satisfy him, and he insisted I must be re-examined bythe great Doctor Henderson. 

It was Friday in Whitsun week before he came to a decision. He called medown, quite late in the evening, --nearly nine it was, --from crammingchemical equations for my Preliminary Scientific examination. He wasstanding in the passage under the feeble gas-lamp, and his face was agrotesque interplay of shadows. He seemed more bowed than when I had firstseen him, and his cheeks had sunk in a little. 

His voice shook with emotion. "Everything is satisfactory, Mr. Eden, " hesaid. "Everything is quite, quite satisfactory. And this night of allnights, you must dine with me and celebrate your--accession. " He wasinterrupted by a cough. "You won't have long to wait, either, " he said, wiping his handkerchief across his lips, and gripping my hand with hislong bony claw that was disengaged. "Certainly not very long to wait. "

We went into the street and called a cab. I remember every incident ofthat drive vividly, the swift, easy motion, the vivid contrast of gas andoil and electric light, the crowds of people in the streets, the place inRegent Street to which we went, and the sumptuous dinner we were servedwith there. I was disconcerted at first by the well-dressed waiter'sglances at my rough clothes, bothered by the stones of the olives, but asthe champagne warmed my blood, my confidence revived. At first the old mantalked of himself. He had already told me his name in the cab; he wasEgbert Elvesham, the great philosopher, whose name I had known since I wasa lad at school. It seemed incredible to me that this man, whoseintelligence had so early dominated mine, this great abstraction, shouldsuddenly realise itself as this decrepit, familiar figure. I daresay everyyoung fellow who has suddenly fallen among celebrities has felt somethingof my disappointment. He told me now of the future that the feeble streamsof his life would presently leave dry for me, houses, copyrights, investments; I had never suspected that philosophers were so rich. Hewatched me drink and eat with a touch of envy. "What a capacity for livingyou have!" he said; and then with a sigh, a sigh of relief I could havethought it, "it will not be long. "

"Ay, " said I, my head swimming now with champagne; "I have a futureperhaps--of a passing agreeable sort, thanks to you. I shall now have thehonour of your name. But you have a past. Such a past as is worth all myfuture. "

He shook his head and smiled, as I thought, with half sad appreciation ofmy flattering admiration. "That future, " he said, "would you in truthchange it?" The waiter came with liqueurs. "You will not perhaps mindtaking my name, taking my position, but would you indeed--willingly--takemy years?"

"With your achievements, " said I gallantly. 

He smiled again. "Kummel--both, " he said to the waiter, and turned hisattention to a little paper packet he had taken from his pocket. "Thishour, " said he, "this after-dinner hour is the hour of small things. Hereis a scrap of my unpublished wisdom. " He opened the packet with hisshaking yellow fingers, and showed a little pinkish powder on the paper. "This, " said he--"well, you must guess what it is. But Kummel--put but adash of this powder in it--is Himmel. "

His large greyish eyes watched mine with an inscrutable expression. 

It was a bit of a shock to me to find this great teacher gave his mind tothe flavour of liqueurs. However, I feigned an interest in his weakness, for I was drunk enough for such small sycophancy. 

He parted the powder between the little glasses, and, rising suddenly, with a strange unexpected dignity, held out his hand towards me. Iimitated his action, and the glasses rang. "To a quick succession, " saidhe, and raised his glass towards his lips. 

"Not that, " I said hastily. "Not that. "

He paused with the liqueur at the level of his chin, and his eyes blazinginto mine. 

"To a long life, " said I. 

He hesitated. "To a long life, " said he, with a sudden bark of laughter, and with eyes fixed on one another we tilted the little glasses. His eyeslooked straight into mine, and as I drained the stuff off, I felt acuriously intense sensation. The first touch of it set my brain in afurious tumult; I seemed to feel an actual physical stirring in my skull, and a seething humming filled my ears. I did not notice the flavour in mymouth, the aroma that filled my throat; I saw only the grey intensity ofhis gaze that burnt into mine. The draught, the mental confusion, thenoise and stirring in my head, seemed to last an interminable time. Curious vague impressions of half-forgotten things danced and vanished onthe edge of my consciousness. At last he broke the spell. With a suddenexplosive sigh he put down his glass. 

"Well?" he said. 

"It's glorious, " said I, though I had not tasted the stuff. 

My head was spinning. I sat down. My brain was chaos. Then my perceptiongrew clear and minute as though I saw things in a concave mirror. Hismanner seemed to have changed into something nervous and hasty. He pulledout his watch and grimaced at it. "Eleven-seven! And to-night I must--Seven-twenty-five. Waterloo! I must go at once. " He called for the bill, and struggled with his coat. Officious waiters came to our assistance. Inanother moment I was wishing him good-bye, over the apron of a cab, andstill with an absurd feeling of minute distinctness, as though--how can Iexpress it?--I not only saw but _felt_ through an invertedopera-glass. 

"That stuff, " he said. He put his hand to his forehead. "I ought not tohave given it to you. It will make your head split to-morrow. Wait aminute. Here. " He handed me out a little flat thing like a seidlitz-powder. "Take that in water as you are going to bed. The other thing was adrug. Not till you're ready to go to bed, mind. It will clear your head. That's all. One more shake--Futurus!"

I gripped his shrivelled claw. "Good-bye, " he said, and by the droop ofhis eyelids I judged he too was a little under the influence of thatbrain-twisting cordial. 

He recollected something else with a start, felt in his breast-pocket, andproduced another packet, this time a cylinder the size and shape of ashaving-stick. "Here, " said he. "I'd almost forgotten. Don't open thisuntil I come to-morrow--but take it now. "

It was so heavy that I wellnigh dropped it. "All ri'!" said I, and hegrinned at me through the cab window as the cabman flicked his horse intowakefulness. It was a white packet he had given me, with red seals ateither end and along its edge. "If this isn't money, " said I, "it'splatinum or lead. "

I stuck it with elaborate care into my pocket, and with a whirling brainwalked home through the Regent Street loiterers and the dark back streetsbeyond Portland Road. I remember the sensations of that walk very vividly, strange as they were. I was still so far myself that I could notice mystrange mental state, and wonder whether this stuff I had had was opium--adrug beyond my experience. It is hard now to describe the peculiarity ofmy mental strangeness--mental doubling vaguely expresses it. As I waswalking up Regent Street I found in my mind a queer persuasion that itwas Waterloo Station, and had an odd impulse to get into the Polytechnicas a man might get into a train. I put a knuckle in my eye, and it wasRegent Street. How can I express it? You see a skilful actor lookingquietly at you, he pulls a grimace, and lo!--another person. Is it tooextravagant if I tell you that it seemed to me as if Regent Street had, for the moment, done that? Then, being persuaded it was Regent Streetagain, I was oddly muddled about some fantastic reminiscences that croppedup. "Thirty years ago, " thought I, "it was here that I quarrelled with mybrother. " Then I burst out laughing, to the astonishment and encouragementof a group of night prowlers. Thirty years ago I did not exist, and neverin my life had I boasted a brother. The stuff was surely liquid folly, forthe poignant regret for that lost brother still clung to me. AlongPortland Road the madness took another turn. I began to recall vanishedshops, and to compare the street with what it used to be. Confused, troubled thinking is comprehensible enough after the drink I had taken, but what puzzled me were these curiously vivid phantasm memories that hadcrept into my mind, and not only the memories that had crept in, but alsothe memories that had slipped out. I stopped opposite Stevens', thenatural history dealer's, and cudgelled my brains to think what he had todo with me. A 'bus went by, and sounded exactly like the rumbling of atrain. I seemed to be dipping into some dark, remote pit for therecollection. "Of course, " said I, at last, "he has promised me threefrogs to-morrow. Odd I should have forgotten. "

Do they still show children dissolving views? In those I remember one viewwould begin like a faint ghost, and grow and oust another. In just thatway it seemed to me that a ghostly set of new sensations was strugglingwith those of my ordinary self. 

I went on through Euston Road to Tottenham Court Road, puzzled, and alittle frightened, and scarcely noticed the unusual way I was taking, forcommonly I used to cut through the intervening network of back streets. Iturned into University Street, to discover that I had forgotten my number. Only by a strong effort did I recall 11A, and even then it seemed to methat it was a thing some forgotten person had told me. I tried to steadymy mind by recalling the incidents of the dinner, and for the life of me Icould conjure up no picture of my host's face; I saw him only as a shadowyoutline, as one might see oneself reflected in a window through which onewas looking. In his place, however, I had a curious exterior vision ofmyself, sitting at a table, flushed, bright-eyed, and talkative. 

"I must take this other powder, " said I. "This is getting impossible. "

I tried the wrong side of the hall for my candle and the matches, and hada doubt of which landing my room might be on. "I'm drunk, " I said, "that'scertain, " and blundered needlessly on the staircase to sustain theproposition. 

At the first glance my room seemed unfamiliar. "What rot!" I said, andstared about me. I seemed to bring myself back by the effort, and the oddphantasmal quality passed into the concrete familiar. There was the oldglass still, with my notes on the albumens stuck in the corner of theframe, my old everyday suit of clothes pitched about the floor. And yet itwas not so real after all. I felt an idiotic persuasion trying to creepinto my mind, as it were, that I was in a railway carriage in a train juststopping, that I was peering out of the window at some unknown station. Igripped the bed-rail firmly to reassure myself. "It's clairvoyance, perhaps, " I said. "I must write to the Psychical Research Society. "

I put the rouleau on my dressing-table, sat on my bed, and began to takeoff my boots. It was as if the picture of my present sensations waspainted over some other picture that was trying to show through. "Curseit!" said I; "my wits are going, or am I in two places at once?"Half-undressed, I tossed the powder into a glass and drank it off. Iteffervesced, and became a fluorescent amber colour. Before I was in bedmy mind was already tranquillised. I felt the pillow at my cheek, andthereupon I must have fallen asleep. 

 * * * * *

I awoke abruptly out of a dream of strange beasts, and found myself lyingon my back. Probably every one knows that dismal, emotional dream fromwhich one escapes, awake indeed, but strangely cowed. There was a curioustaste in my mouth, a tired feeling in my limbs, a sense of cutaneousdiscomfort. I lay with my head motionless on my pillow, expecting that myfeeling of strangeness and terror would pass away, and that I should thendoze off again to sleep. But instead of that, my uncanny sensationsincreased. At first I could perceive nothing wrong about me. There was afaint light in the room, so faint that it was the very next thing todarkness, and the furniture stood out in it as vague blots of absolutedarkness. I stared with my eyes just over the bedclothes. 

It came into my mind that some one had entered the room to rob me of myrouleau of money, but after lying for some moments, breathing regularly tosimulate sleep, I realised this was mere fancy. Nevertheless, the uneasyassurance of something wrong kept fast hold of me. With an effort I raisedmy head from the pillow, and peered about me at the dark. What it was Icould not conceive. I looked at the dim shapes around me, the greater andlesser darknesses that indicated curtains, table, fireplace, bookshelves, and so forth. Then I began to perceive something unfamiliar in the formsof the darkness. Had the bed turned round? Yonder should be thebookshelves, and something shrouded and pallid rose there, something thatwould not answer to the bookshelves, however I looked at it. It was fartoo big to be my shirt thrown on a chair. 

Overcoming a childish terror, I threw back the bedclothes and thrust myleg out of bed. Instead of coming out of my truckle-bed upon the floor, Ifound my foot scarcely reached the edge of the mattress. I made anotherstep, as it were, and sat up on the edge of the bed. By the side of my bedshould be the candle, and the matches upon the broken chair. I put out myhand and touched--nothing. I waved my hand in the darkness, and it cameagainst some heavy hanging, soft and thick in texture, which gave arustling noise at my touch. I grasped this and pulled it; it appeared tobe a curtain suspended over the head of my bed. 

I was now thoroughly awake, and beginning to realise that I was in astrange room. I was puzzled. I tried to recall the overnightcircumstances, and I found them now, curiously enough, vivid in my memory:the supper, my reception of the little packages, my wonder whether I wasintoxicated, my slow undressing, the coolness to my flushed face of mypillow. I felt a sudden distrust. Was that last night, or the nightbefore? At any rate, this room was strange to me, and I could not imaginehow I had got into it. The dim, pallid outline was growing paler, and Iperceived it was a window, with the dark shape of an oval toilet-glassagainst the weak intimation of the dawn that filtered through the blind. Istood up, and was surprised by a curious feeling of weakness andunsteadiness. With trembling hands outstretched, I walked slowly towardsthe window, getting, nevertheless, a bruise on the knee from a chair bythe way. I fumbled round the glass, which was large, with handsome brasssconces, to find the blind cord. I could not find any. By chance I tookhold of the tassel, and with the click of a spring the blind ran up. 

I found myself looking out upon a scene that was altogether strange to me. The night was overcast, and through the flocculent grey of the heapedclouds there filtered a faint half-light of dawn. Just at the edge of thesky the cloud-canopy had a blood-red rim. Below, everything was dark andindistinct, dim hills in the distance, a vague mass of buildings runningup into pinnacles, trees like spilt ink, and below the window a tracery ofblack bushes and pale grey paths. It was so unfamiliar that for the momentI thought myself still dreaming. I felt the toilet-table; it appeared tobe made of some polished wood, and was rather elaborately furnished--therewere little cut-glass bottles and a brush upon it. There was also a queerlittle object, horse-shoe shape it felt, with smooth, hard projections, lying in a saucer. I could find no matches nor candlestick. 

I turned my eyes to the room again. Now the blind was up, faint spectresof its furnishing came out of the darkness. There was a huge curtainedbed, and the fireplace at its foot had a large white mantel with somethingof the shimmer of marble. 

I leant against the toilet-table, shut my eyes and opened them again, andtried to think. The whole thing was far too real for dreaming. I wasinclined to imagine there was still some hiatus in my memory, as aconsequence of my draught of that strange liqueur; that I had come into myinheritance perhaps, and suddenly lost my recollection of everything sincemy good fortune had been announced. Perhaps if I waited a little, thingswould be clearer to me again. Yet my dinner with old Elvesham was nowsingularly vivid and recent. The champagne, the observant waiters, thepowder, and the liqueurs--I could have staked my soul it all happened afew hours ago. 

And then occurred a thing so trivial and yet so terrible to me that Ishiver now to think of that moment. I spoke aloud. I said, "How the devildid I get here?" ... _And the voice was not my own_. 

It was not my own, it was thin, the articulation was slurred, theresonance of my facial bones was different. Then, to reassure myself I ranone hand over the other, and felt loose folds of skin, the bony laxity ofage. "Surely, " I said, in that horrible voice that had somehow establisheditself in my throat, "surely this thing is a dream!" Almost as quickly asif I did it involuntarily, I thrust my fingers into my mouth. My teethhad gone. My finger-tips ran on the flaccid surface of an even row ofshrivelled gums. I was sick with dismay and disgust. 

I felt then a passionate desire to see myself, to realise at once in itsfull horror the ghastly change that had come upon me. I tottered to themantel, and felt along it for matches. As I did so, a barking cough sprangup in my throat, and I clutched the thick flannel nightdress I found aboutme. There were no matches there, and I suddenly realised that myextremities were cold. Sniffing and coughing, whimpering a little, perhaps, I fumbled back to bed. "It is surely a dream, " I whispered tomyself as I clambered back, "surely a dream. " It was a senile repetition. I pulled the bedclothes over my shoulders, over my ears, I thrust mywithered hand under the pillow, and determined to compose myself to sleep. Of course it was a dream. In the morning the dream would be over, and Ishould wake up strong and vigorous again to my youth and studies. I shutmy eyes, breathed regularly, and, finding myself wakeful, began to countslowly through the powers of three. 

But the thing I desired would not come. I could not get to sleep. And thepersuasion of the inexorable reality of the change that had happened to megrew steadily. Presently I found myself with my eyes wide open, the powersof three forgotten, and my skinny fingers upon my shrivelled gums, I was, indeed, suddenly and abruptly, an old man. I had in some unaccountablemanner fallen through my life and come to old age, in some way I had beencheated of all the best of my life, of love, of struggle, of strength, andhope. I grovelled into the pillow and tried to persuade myself that suchhallucination was possible. Imperceptibly, steadily, the dawn grewclearer. 

At last, despairing of further sleep, I sat up in bed and looked about me. A chill twilight rendered the whole chamber visible. It was spacious andwell-furnished, better furnished than any room I had ever slept in before. A candle and matches became dimly visible upon a little pedestal in arecess. I threw back the bedclothes, and, shivering with the rawness ofthe early morning, albeit it was summer-time, I got out and lit thecandle. Then, trembling horribly, so that the extinguisher rattled on itsspike, I tottered to the glass and saw--_Elvesham's face_! It wasnone the less horrible because I had already dimly feared as much. He hadalready seemed physically weak and pitiful to me, but seen now, dressedonly in a coarse flannel nightdress, that fell apart and showed thestringy neck, seen now as my own body, I cannot describe its desolatedecrepitude. The hollow cheeks, the straggling tail of dirty grey hair, the rheumy bleared eyes, the quivering, shrivelled lips, the lowerdisplaying a gleam of the pink interior lining, and those horrible darkgums showing. You who are mind and body together, at your natural years, cannot imagine what this fiendish imprisonment meant to me. To be youngand full of the desire and energy of youth, and to be caught, andpresently to be crushed in this tottering ruin of a body... 

But I wander from the course of my story. For some time I must have beenstunned at this change that had come upon me. It was daylight when I didso far gather myself together as to think. In some inexplicable way I hadbeen changed, though how, short of magic, the thing had been done, I couldnot say. And as I thought, the diabolical ingenuity of Elvesham came hometo me. It seemed plain to me that as I found myself in his, so he must bein possession of _my_ body, of my strength, that is, and my future. But how to prove it? Then, as I thought, the thing became so incredible, even to me, that my mind reeled, and I had to pinch myself, to feel mytoothless gums, to see myself in the glass, and touch the things about me, before I could steady myself to face the facts again. Was all lifehallucination? Was I indeed Elvesham, and he me? Had I been dreaming ofEden overnight? Was there any Eden? But if I was Elvesham, I shouldremember where I was on the previous morning, the name of the town inwhich I lived, what happened before the dream began. I struggled with mythoughts. I recalled the queer doubleness of my memories overnight. Butnow my mind was clear. Not the ghost of any memories but those proper toEden could I raise. 

"This way lies insanity!" I cried in my piping voice. I staggered to myfeet, dragged my feeble, heavy limbs to the washhand-stand, and plunged mygrey head into a basin of cold water. Then, towelling myself, I triedagain. It was no good. I felt beyond all question that I was indeed Eden, not Elvesham. But Eden in Elvesham's body!

Had I been a man of any other age, I might have given myself up to my fateas one enchanted. But in these sceptical days miracles do not passcurrent. Here was some trick of psychology. What a drug and a steady starecould do, a drug and a steady stare, or some similar treatment, couldsurely undo. Men have lost their memories before. But to exchange memoriesas one does umbrellas! I laughed. Alas! not a healthy laugh, but awheezing, senile titter. I could have fancied old Elvesham laughing at myplight, and a gust of petulant anger, unusual to me, swept across myfeelings. I began dressing eagerly in the clothes I found lying about onthe floor, and only realised when I was dressed that it was an eveningsuit I had assumed. I opened the wardrobe and found some more ordinaryclothes, a pair of plaid trousers, and an old-fashioned dressing-gown. Iput a venerable smoking-cap on my venerable head, and, coughing a littlefrom my exertions, tottered out upon the landing. 

It was then, perhaps, a quarter to six, and the blinds were closely drawnand the house quite silent. The landing was a spacious one, a broad, richly-carpeted staircase went down into the darkness of the hall below, and before me a door ajar showed me a writing-desk, a revolving bookcase, the back of a study chair, and a fine array of bound books, shelf uponshelf. 

"My study, " I mumbled, and walked across the landing. Then at the sound ofmy voice a thought struck me, and I went back to the bedroom and put inthe set of false teeth. They slipped in with the ease of old, habit. "That's better, " said I, gnashing them, and so returned to the study. 

The drawers of the writing-desk were locked. Its revolving top was alsolocked. I could see no indications of the keys, and there were none in thepockets of my trousers. I shuffled back at once to the bedroom, and wentthrough the dress suit, and afterwards the pockets of all the garments Icould find. I was very eager, and one might have imagined that burglarshad been at work, to see my room when I had done. Not only were there nokeys to be found, but not a coin, nor a scrap of paper--save only thereceipted bill of the overnight dinner. 

A curious weariness asserted itself. I sat down and stared at the garmentsflung here and there, their pockets turned inside out. My first frenzy hadalready flickered out. Every moment I was beginning to realise the immenseintelligence of the plans of my enemy, to see more and more clearly thehopelessness of my position. With an effort I rose and hurried hobblinginto the study again. On the staircase was a housemaid pulling up theblinds. She stared, I think, at the expression of my face. I shut the doorof the study behind me, and, seizing a poker, began an attack upon thedesk. That is how they found me. The cover of the desk was split, the locksmashed, the letters torn out of the pigeon-holes, and tossed about theroom. In my senile rage I had flung about the pens and other such lightstationery, and overturned the ink. Moreover, a large vase upon the mantelhad got broken--I do not know how. I could find no cheque-book, no money, no indications of the slightest use for the recovery of my body. I wasbattering madly at the drawers, when the butler, backed by twowomen-servants, intruded upon me. 

 * * * * *

That simply is the story of my change. No one will believe my franticassertions. I am treated as one demented, and even at this moment I amunder restraint. But I am sane, absolutely sane, and to prove it I havesat down to write this story minutely as the things happened to me. Iappeal to the reader, whether there is any trace of insanity in the styleor method, of the story he has been reading. I am a young man locked awayin an old man's body. But the clear fact is incredible to everyone. Naturally I appear demented to those who will not believe this, naturallyI do not know the names of my secretaries, of the doctors who come to seeme, of my servants and neighbours, of this town (wherever it is) where Ifind myself. Naturally I lose myself in my own house, and sufferinconveniences of every sort. Naturally I ask the oddest questions. Naturally I weep and cry out, and have paroxysms of despair. I have nomoney and no cheque-book. The bank will not recognise my signature, for Isuppose that, allowing for the feeble muscles I now have, my handwritingis still Eden's. These people about me will not let me go to the bankpersonally. It seems, indeed, that there is no bank in this town, and thatI have an account in some part of London. It seems that Elvesham kept thename of his solicitor secret from all his household. I can ascertainnothing. Elvesham was, of course, a profound student of mental science, and all my declarations of the facts of the case merely confirm the theorythat my insanity is the outcome of overmuch brooding upon psychology. Dreams of the personal identity indeed! Two days ago I was a healthyyoungster, with all life before me; now I am a furious old man, unkempt, and desperate, and miserable, prowling about a great, luxurious, strangehouse, watched, feared, and avoided as a lunatic by everyone about me. Andin London is Elvesham beginning life again in a vigorous body, and withall the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of threescore and ten. He hasstolen my life. 

What has happened I do not clearly know. In the study are volumes ofmanuscript notes referring chiefly to the psychology of memory, and partsof what may be either calculations or ciphers in symbols absolutelystrange to me. In some passages there are indications that he was alsooccupied with the philosophy of mathematics. I take it he has transferredthe whole of his memories, the accumulation that makes up his personality, from this old withered brain of his to mine, and, similarly, that he hastransferred mine to his discarded tenement. Practically, that is, he haschanged bodies. But how such a change may be possible is without the rangeof my philosophy. I have been a materialist for all my thinking life, buthere, suddenly, is a clear case of man's detachability from matter. 

One desperate experiment I am about to try. I sit writing here beforeputting the matter to issue. This morning, with the help of a table-knifethat I had secreted at breakfast, I succeeded in breaking open a fairlyobvious secret drawer in this wrecked writing-desk. I discovered nothingsave a little green glass phial containing a white powder. Round the neckof the phial was a label, and thereon was written this one word, "_Release_. " This may be--is most probably--poison. I can understandElvesham placing poison in my way, and I should be sure that it was hisintention so to get rid of the only living witness against him, were itnot for this careful concealment. The man has practically solved theproblem of immortality. Save for the spite of chance, he will live in mybody until it has aged, and then, again, throwing that aside, he willassume some other victim's youth and strength. When one remembers hisheartlessness, it is terrible to think of the ever-growing experiencethat... How long has he been leaping from body to body?... But I tire ofwriting. The powder appears to be soluble in water. The taste is notunpleasant. 

 * * * * *

There the narrative found upon Mr. Elvesham's desk ends. His dead body laybetween the desk and the chair. The latter had been pushed back, probablyby his last convulsions. The story was written in pencil and in a crazyhand, quite unlike his usual minute characters. There remain only twocurious facts to record. Indisputably there was some connection betweenEden and Elvesham, since the whole of Elvesham's property was bequeathedto the young man. But he never inherited. When Elvesham committed suicide, Eden was, strangely enough, already dead. Twenty-four hours before, he hadbeen knocked down by a cab and killed instantly, at the crowded crossingat the intersection of Gower Street and Euston Road. So that the onlyhuman being who could have thrown light upon this fantastic narrative isbeyond the reach of questions. Without further comment I leave thisextraordinary matter to the reader's individual judgment. 

 XII. 

 UNDER THE KNIFE. 

"What if I die under it?" The thought recurred again and again, as Iwalked home from Haddon's. It was a purely personal question. I was sparedthe deep anxieties of a married man, and I knew there were few of myintimate friends but would find my death troublesome chiefly on account oftheir duty of regret. I was surprised indeed, and perhaps a littlehumiliated, as I turned the matter over, to think how few could possiblyexceed the conventional requirement. Things came before me stripped ofglamour, in a clear dry light, during that walk from Haddon's house overPrimrose Hill. There were the friends of my youth: I perceived now thatour affection was a tradition, which we foregathered rather laboriously tomaintain. There were the rivals and helpers of my later career: I supposeI had been cold-blooded or undemonstrative--one perhaps implies the other. It may be that even the capacity for friendship is a question of physique. There had been a time in my own life when I had grieved bitterly enough atthe loss of a friend; but as I walked home that afternoon the emotionalside of my imagination was dormant. I could not pity myself, nor feelsorry for my friends, nor conceive of them as grieving for me. 

I was interested in this deadness of my emotional nature--no doubt aconcomitant of my stagnating physiology; and my thoughts wandered offalong the line it suggested. Once before, in my hot youth, I had suffereda sudden loss of blood, and had been within an ace of death. I rememberednow that my affections as well as my passions had drained out of me, leaving scarce anything but a tranquil resignation, a dreg of self-pity. It had been weeks before the old ambitions and tendernesses and all thecomplex moral interplay of a man had reasserted themselves. It occurred tome that the real meaning of this numbness might be a gradual slipping awayfrom the pleasure-pain guidance of the animal man. It has been proven, Itake it, as thoroughly as anything can be proven in this world, that thehigher emotions, the moral feelings, even the subtle unselfishness oflove, are evolved from the elemental desires and fears of the simpleanimal: they are the harness in which man's mental freedom goes. And itmay be that as death overshadows us, as our possibility of actingdiminishes, this complex growth of balanced impulse, propensity andaversion, whose interplay inspires our acts, goes with it. Leaving what?

I was suddenly brought back to reality by an imminent collision with thebutcher-boy's tray. I found that I was crossing the bridge over theRegent's Park Canal, which runs parallel with that in the ZoologicalGardens. The boy in blue had been looking over his shoulder at a blackbarge advancing slowly, towed by a gaunt white horse. In the Gardens anurse was leading three happy little children over the bridge. The treeswere bright green; the spring hopefulness was still unstained by the dustsof summer; the sky in the water was bright and clear, but broken by longwaves, by quivering bands of black, as the barge drove through. The breezewas stirring; but it did not stir me as the spring breeze used to do. 

Was this dulness of feeling in itself an anticipation? It was curious thatI could reason and follow out a network of suggestion as clearly as ever:so, at least, it seemed to me. It was calmness rather than dulness thatwas coming upon me. Was there any ground for the relief in thepresentiment of death? Did a man near to death begin instinctively towithdraw himself from the meshes of matter and sense, even before thecold hand was laid upon his? I felt strangely isolated--isolated withoutregret--from the life and existence about me. The children playing in thesun and gathering strength and experience for the business of life, the park-keeper gossiping with a nursemaid, the nursing mother, the youngcouple intent upon each other as they passed me, the trees by the waysidespreading new pleading leaves to the sunlight, the stir in theirbranches--I had been part of it all, but I had nearly done with it now. 

Some way down the Broad Walk I perceived that I was tired, and that myfeet were heavy. It was hot that afternoon, and I turned aside and satdown on one of the green chairs that line the way. In a minute I had dozedinto a dream, and the tide of my thoughts washed up a vision of theresurrection. I was still sitting in the chair, but I thought myselfactually dead, withered, tattered, dried, one eye (I saw) pecked out bybirds. "Awake!" cried a voice; and incontinently the dust of the path andthe mould under the grass became insurgent. I had never before thought ofRegent's Park as a cemetery, but now, through the trees, stretching as faras eye could see, I beheld a flat plain of writhing graves and heelingtombstones. There seemed to be some trouble: the rising dead appeared tostifle as they struggled upward, they bled in their struggles, the redflesh was torn away from the white bones. "Awake!" cried a voice; but Idetermined I would not rise to such horrors. "Awake!" They would not letme alone. "Wake up!" said an angry voice. A cockney angel! The man whosells the tickets was shaking me, demanding my penny. 

I paid my penny, pocketed my ticket, yawned, stretched my legs, and, feeling now rather less torpid, got up and walked on towards LanghamPlace. I speedily lost myself again in a shifting maze of thoughts aboutdeath. Going across Marylebone Road into that crescent at the end ofLangham Place, I had the narrowest escape from the shaft of a cab, andwent on my way with a palpitating heart and a bruised shoulder. It struckme that it would have been curious if my meditations on my death on themorrow had led to my death that day. 

But I will not weary you with more of my experiences that day and thenext. I knew more and more certainly that I should die under theoperation; at times I think I was inclined to pose to myself. The doctorswere coming at eleven, and I did not get up. It seemed scarce worth whileto trouble about washing and dressing, and though I read my newspapers andthe letters that came by the first post, I did not find them veryinteresting. There was a friendly note from Addison, my old school-friend, calling my attention to two discrepancies and a printer's error in my newbook, with one from Langridge venting some vexation over Minton. The restwere business communications. I breakfasted in bed. The glow of pain at myside seemed more massive. I knew it was pain, and yet, if you canunderstand, I did not find it very painful. I had been awake and hot andthirsty in the night, but in the morning bed felt comfortable. In thenight-time I had lain thinking of things that were past; in the morning Idozed over the question of immortality. Haddon came, punctual to theminute, with a neat black bag; and Mowbray soon followed. Their arrivalstirred me up a little. I began to take a more personal interest in theproceedings. Haddon moved the little octagonal table close to the bedside, and, with his broad back to me, began taking things out of his bag. Iheard the light click of steel upon steel. My imagination, I found, wasnot altogether stagnant. "Will you hurt me much?" I said in an off-handtone. 

"Not a bit, " Haddon answered over his shoulder. "We shall chloroform you. Your heart's as sound as a bell. " And as he spoke, I had a whiff of thepungent sweetness of the anaesthetic. 

They stretched me out, with a convenient exposure of my side, and, almostbefore I realised what was happening, the chloroform was beingadministered. It stings the nostrils, and there is a suffocating sensationat first. I knew I should die--that this was the end of consciousness forme. And suddenly I felt that I was not prepared for death: I had a vaguesense of a duty overlooked--I knew not what. What was it I had not done? Icould think of nothing more to do, nothing desirable left in life; and yetI had the strangest disinclination to death. And the physical sensationwas painfully oppressive. Of course the doctors did not know they weregoing to kill me. Possibly I struggled. Then I fell motionless, anda great silence, a monstrous silence, and an impenetrable blackness cameupon me. 

There must have been an interval of absolute unconsciousness, seconds orminutes. Then with a chilly, unemotional clearness, I perceived that I wasnot yet dead. I was still in my body; but all the multitudinous sensationsthat come sweeping from it to make up the background of consciousness hadgone, leaving me free of it all. No, not free of it all; for as yetsomething still held me to the poor stark flesh upon the bed--held me, yetnot so closely that I did not feel myself external to it, independent ofit, straining away from it. I do not think I saw, I do not think I heard;but I perceived all that was going on, and it was as if I both heard andsaw. Haddon was bending over me, Mowbray behind me; the scalpel--it was alarge scalpel--was cutting my flesh at the side under the flying ribs. Itwas interesting to see myself cut like cheese, without a pang, withouteven a qualm. The interest was much of a quality with that one might feelin a game of chess between strangers. Haddon's face was firm and his handsteady; but I was surprised to perceive (_how_ I know not) that hewas feeling the gravest doubt as to his own wisdom in the conduct of theoperation. 

Mowbray's thoughts, too, I could see. He was thinking that Haddon's mannershowed too much of the specialist. New suggestions came up like bubblesthrough a stream of frothing meditation, and burst one after another inthe little bright spot of his consciousness. He could not help noticingand admiring Haddon's swift dexterity, in spite of his envious quality andhis disposition to detract. I saw my liver exposed. I was puzzled at myown condition. I did not feel that I was dead, but I was different in someway from my living self. The grey depression, that had weighed on me for ayear or more and coloured all my thoughts, was gone. I perceived andthought without any emotional tint at all. I wondered if everyoneperceived things in this way under chloroform, and forgot it again when hecame out of it. It would be inconvenient to look into some heads, and notforget. 

Although I did not think that I was dead, I still perceived quite clearlythat I was soon to die. This brought me back to the consideration ofHaddon's proceedings. I looked into his mind, and saw that he was afraidof cutting a branch of the portal vein. My attention was distracted fromdetails by the curious changes going on in his mind. His consciousness waslike the quivering little spot of light which is thrown by the mirror of agalvanometer. His thoughts ran under it like a stream, some through thefocus bright and distinct, some shadowy in the half-light of the edge. Just now the little glow was steady; but the least movement on Mowbray'spart, the slightest sound from outside, even a faint difference in theslow movement of the living flesh he was cutting, set the light-spotshivering and spinning. A new sense-impression came rushing up through theflow of thoughts; and lo! the light-spot jerked away towards it, swifterthan a frightened fish. It was wonderful to think that upon that unstable, fitful thing depended all the complex motions of the man; that for thenext five minutes, therefore, my life hung upon its movements. And he wasgrowing more and more nervous in his work. It was as if a little pictureof a cut vein grew brighter, and struggled to oust from his brain anotherpicture of a cut falling short of the mark. He was afraid: his dread ofcutting too little was battling with his dread of cutting too far. 

Then, suddenly, like an escape of water from under a lock-gate, a greatuprush of horrible realisation set all his thoughts swirling, andsimultaneously I perceived that the vein was cut. He started back with ahoarse exclamation, and I saw the brown-purple blood gather in a swiftbead, and run trickling. He was horrified. He pitched the red-stainedscalpel on to the octagonal table; and instantly both doctors flungthemselves upon me, making hasty and ill-conceived efforts to remedy thedisaster. "Ice!" said Mowbray, gasping. But I knew that I was killed, though my body still clung to me. 

I will not describe their belated endeavours to save me, though Iperceived every detail. My perceptions were sharper and swifter than theyhad ever been in life; my thoughts rushed through my mind with incredibleswiftness, but with perfect definition. I can only compare their crowdedclarity to the effects of a reasonable dose of opium. In a moment it wouldall be over, and I should be free. I knew I was immortal, but what wouldhappen I did not know. Should I drift off presently, like a puff of smokefrom a gun, in some kind of half-material body, an attenuated version ofmy material self? Should I find myself suddenly among the innumerablehosts of the dead, and know the world about me for the phantasmagoria ithad always seemed? Should I drift to some spiritualistic _séance_, and there make foolish, incomprehensible attempts to affect a purblindmedium? It was a state of unemotional curiosity, of colourlessexpectation. And then I realised a growing stress upon me, a feeling asthough some huge human magnet was drawing me upward out of my body. Thestress grew and grew. I seemed an atom for which monstrous forces werefighting. For one brief, terrible moment sensation came back to me. Thatfeeling of falling headlong which comes in nightmares, that feeling athousand times intensified, that and a black horror swept across mythoughts in a torrent. Then the two doctors, the naked body with its cutside, the little room, swept away from under me and vanished, as a speckof foam vanishes down an eddy. 

I was in mid-air. Far below was the West End of London, recedingrapidly, --for I seemed to be flying swiftly upward, --and as it receded, passing westward like a panorama. I could see, through the faint haze ofsmoke, the innumerable roofs chimney-set, the narrow roadways, stippledwith people and conveyances, the little specks of squares, and the churchsteeples like thorns sticking out of the fabric. But it spun away as theearth rotated on its axis, and in a few seconds (as it seemed) I was overthe scattered clumps of town about Ealing, the little Thames a thread ofblue to the south, and the Chiltern Hills and the North Downs coming uplike the rim of a basin, far away and faint with haze. Up I rushed. And atfirst I had not the faintest conception what this headlong rush upwardcould mean. 

Every moment the circle of scenery beneath me grew wider and wider, andthe details of town and field, of hill and valley, got more and more hazyand pale and indistinct, a luminous grey was mingled more and more withthe blue of the hills and the green of the open meadows; and a littlepatch of cloud, low and far to the west, shone ever more dazzlingly white. Above, as the veil of atmosphere between myself and outer space grewthinner, the sky, which had been a fair springtime blue at first, grewdeeper and richer in colour, passing steadily through the interveningshades, until presently it was as dark as the blue sky of midnight, andpresently as black as the blackness of a frosty starlight, and at last asblack as no blackness I had ever beheld. And first one star, and thenmany, and at last an innumerable host broke out upon the sky: more starsthan anyone has ever seen from the face of the earth. For the blueness ofthe sky in the light of the sun and stars sifted and spread abroadblindingly: there is diffused light even in the darkest skies of winter, and we do not see the stars by day only because of the dazzlingirradiation of the sun. But now I saw things--I know not how; assuredlywith no mortal eyes--and that defect of bedazzlement blinded me no longer. The sun was incredibly strange and wonderful. The body of it was a disc ofblinding white light: not yellowish, as it seems to those who live uponthe earth, but livid white, all streaked with scarlet streaks and rimmedabout with a fringe of writhing tongues of red fire. And shooting half-wayacross the heavens from either side of it and brighter than the Milky Way, were two pinions of silver white, making it look more like those wingedglobes I have seen in Egyptian sculpture than anything else I can rememberupon earth. These I knew for the solar corona, though I had never seenanything of it but a picture during the days of my earthly life. 

When my attention came back to the earth again, I saw that it had fallenvery far away from me. Field and town were long since indistinguishable, and all the varied hues of the country were merging into a uniform brightgrey, broken only by the brilliant white of the clouds that lay scatteredin flocculent masses over Ireland and the west of England. For now I couldsee the outlines of the north of France and Ireland, and all this Islandof Britain, save where Scotland passed over the horizon to the north, orwhere the coast was blurred or obliterated by cloud. The sea was a dullgrey, and darker than the land; and the whole panorama was rotating slowlytowards the east. 

All this had happened so swiftly that until I was some thousand miles orso from the earth I had no thought for myself. But now I perceived I hadneither hands nor feet, neither parts nor organs, and that I felt neitheralarm nor pain. All about me I perceived that the vacancy (for I hadalready left the air behind) was cold beyond the imagination of man; butit troubled me not. The sun's rays shot through the void, powerless tolight or heat until they should strike on matter in their course. I sawthings with a serene self-forgetfulness, even as if I were God. And downbelow there, rushing away from me, --countless miles in a second, --where alittle dark spot on the grey marked the position of London, two doctorswere struggling to restore life to the poor hacked and outworn shell I hadabandoned. I felt then such release, such serenity as I can compare to nomortal delight I have ever known. 

It was only after I had perceived all these things that the meaning ofthat headlong rush of the earth grew into comprehension. Yet it was sosimple, so obvious, that I was amazed at my never anticipating the thingthat was happening to me. I had suddenly been cut adrift from matter: allthat was material of me was there upon earth, whirling away through space, held to the earth by gravitation, partaking of the earth-inertia, movingin its wreath of epicycles round the sun, and with the sun and the planetson their vast march through space. But the immaterial has no inertia, feels nothing of the pull of matter for matter: where it parts from itsgarment of flesh, there it remains (so far as space concerns it anylonger) immovable in space. _I_ was not leaving the earth: the earthwas leaving _me_, and not only the earth but the whole solar systemwas streaming past. And about me in space, invisible to me, scattered inthe wake of the earth upon its journey, there must be an innumerablemultitude of souls, stripped like myself of the material, stripped likemyself of the passions of the individual and the generous emotions of thegregarious brute, naked intelligences, things of new-born wonder andthought, marvelling at the strange release that had suddenly come on them!

As I receded faster and faster from the strange white sun in the blackheavens, and from the broad and shining earth upon which my being hadbegun, I seemed to grow in some incredible manner vast: vast as regardsthis world I had left, vast as regards the moments and periods of a humanlife. Very soon I saw the full circle of the earth, slightly gibbous, likethe moon when she nears her full, but very large; and the silvery shape ofAmerica was now in the noonday blaze wherein (as it seemed) little Englandhad been basking but a few minutes ago. At first the earth was large, andshone in the heavens, filling a great part of them; but every moment shegrew smaller and more distant. As she shrank, the broad moon in its thirdquarter crept into view over the rim of her disc. I looked for theconstellations. Only that part of Aries directly behind the sun and theLion, which the earth covered, were hidden. I recognised the tortuous, tattered band of the Milky Way with Vega very bright between sun andearth; and Sirius and Orion shone splendid against the unfathomableblackness in the opposite quarter of the heavens. The Pole Star wasoverhead, and the Great Bear hung over the circle of the earth. And awaybeneath and beyond the shining corona of the sun were strange groupings ofstars I had never seen in my life--notably a dagger-shaped group that Iknew for the Southern Cross. All these were no larger than when they hadshone on earth, but the little stars that one scarce sees shone nowagainst the setting of black vacancy as brightly as the first-magnitudeshad done, while the larger worlds were points of indescribable glory andcolour. Aldebaran was a spot of blood-red fire, and Sirius condensed toone point the light of innumerable sapphires. And they shone steadily:they did not scintillate, they were calmly glorious. My impressions had anadamantine hardness and brightness: there was no blurring softness, noatmosphere, nothing but infinite darkness set with the myriads of theseacute and brilliant points and specks of light. Presently, when I lookedagain, the little earth seemed no bigger than the sun, and it dwindled andturned as I looked, until in a second's space (as it seemed to me), it washalved; and so it went on swiftly dwindling. Far away in the oppositedirection, a little pinkish pin's head of light, shining steadily, was theplanet Mars. I swam motionless in vacancy, and, without a trace of terroror astonishment, watched the speck of cosmic dust we call the world fallaway from me. 

Presently it dawned upon me that my sense of duration had changed; that mymind was moving not faster but infinitely slower, that between eachseparate impression there was a period of many days. The moon spun onceround the earth as I noted this; and I perceived clearly the motion ofMars in his orbit. Moreover, it appeared as if the time between thoughtand thought grew steadily greater, until at last a thousand years was buta moment in my perception. 

At first the constellations had shone motionless against the blackbackground of infinite space; but presently it seemed as though the groupof stars about Hercules and the Scorpion was contracting, while Orion andAldebaran and their neighbours were scattering apart. Flashing suddenlyout of the darkness there came a flying multitude of particles of rock, glittering like dust-specks in a sunbeam, and encompassed in a faintlyluminous cloud. They swirled all about me, and vanished again in atwinkling far behind. And then I saw that a bright spot of light, thatshone a little to one side of my path, was growing very rapidly larger, and perceived that it was the planet Saturn rushing towards me. Larger andlarger it grew, swallowing up the heavens behind it, and hiding everymoment a fresh multitude, of stars. I perceived its flattened, whirlingbody, its disc-like belt, and seven of its little satellites. It grew andgrew, till it towered enormous; and then I plunged amid a streamingmultitude of clashing stones and dancing dust-particles and gas-eddies, and saw for a moment the mighty triple belt like three concentric archesof moonlight above me, its shadow black on the boiling tumult below. Thesethings happened in one-tenth of the time it takes to tell them. The planetwent by like a flash of lightning; for a few seconds it blotted out thesun, and there and then became a mere black, dwindling, winged patchagainst the light. The earth, the mother mote of my being, I could nolonger see. 

So with a stately swiftness, in the profoundest silence, the solar systemfell from me as it had been a garment, until the sun was a mere star amidthe multitude of stars, with its eddy of planet-specks lost in theconfused glittering of the remoter light. I was no longer a denizen of thesolar system: I had come to the outer Universe, I seemed to grasp andcomprehend the whole world of matter. Ever more swiftly the stars closedin about the spot where Antares and Vega had vanished in a phosphorescenthaze, until that part of the sky had the semblance of a whirling mass ofnebulae, and ever before me yawned vaster gaps of vacant blackness, andthe stars shone fewer and fewer. It seemed as if I moved towards a pointbetween Orion's belt and sword; and the void about that region openedvaster and vaster every second, an incredible gulf of nothingness intowhich I was falling. Faster and ever faster the universe rushed by, ahurry of whirling motes at last, speeding silently into the void. Starsglowing brighter and brighter, with their circling planets catching thelight in a ghostly fashion as I neared them, shone out and vanished againinto inexistence; faint comets, clusters of meteorites, winking specks ofmatter, eddying light-points, whizzed past, some perhaps a hundredmillions of miles or so from me at most, few nearer, travelling withunimaginable rapidity, shooting constellations, momentary darts of fire, through that black, enormous night. More than anything else it was like adusty draught, sunbeam-lit. Broader and wider and deeper grew the starlessspace, the vacant Beyond, into which I was being drawn. At last a quarterof the heavens was black and blank, and the whole headlong rush of stellaruniverse closed in behind me like a veil of light that is gatheredtogether. It drove away from me like a monstrous jack-o'-lantern driven bythe wind. I had come out into the wilderness of space. Ever the vacantblackness grew broader, until the hosts of the stars seemed only like aswarm of fiery specks hurrying away from me, inconceivably remote, and thedarkness, the nothingness and emptiness, was about me on every side. Soonthe little universe of matter, the cage of points in which I had begun tobe, was dwindling, now to a whirling disc of luminous glittering, and nowto one minute disc of hazy light. In a little while it would shrink to apoint, and at last would vanish altogether. 

Suddenly feeling came back to me--feeling in the shape of overwhelmingterror; such a dread of those dark vastitudes as no words can describe, apassionate resurgence of sympathy and social desire. Were there othersouls, invisible to me as I to them, about me in the blackness? or was Iindeed, even as I felt, alone? Had I passed out of being into somethingthat was neither being nor not-being? The covering of the body, thecovering of matter, had been torn from me, and the hallucinations ofcompanionship and security. Everything was black and silent. I had ceasedto be. I was nothing. There was nothing, save only that infinitesimal dotof light that dwindled in the gulf. I strained myself to hear and see, andfor a while there was naught but infinite silence, intolerable darkness, horror, and despair. 

Then I saw that about the spot of light into which the whole world ofmatter had shrunk there was a faint glow. And in a band on either side ofthat the darkness was not absolute. I watched it for ages, as it seemed tome, and through the long waiting the haze grew imperceptibly moredistinct. And then about the band appeared an irregular cloud of thefaintest, palest brown. I felt a passionate impatience; but the thingsgrew brighter so slowly that they scarce seemed to change. What wasunfolding itself? What was this strange reddish dawn in the interminablenight of space?

The cloud's shape was grotesque. It seemed to be looped along its lowerside into four projecting masses, and, above, it ended in a straight line. What phantom was it? I felt assured I had seen that figure before; but Icould not think what, nor where, nor when it was. Then the realisationrushed upon me. _It was a clenched Hand. _ I was alone in space, alonewith this huge, shadowy Hand, upon which the whole Universe of Matter laylike an unconsidered speck of dust. It seemed as though I watched itthrough vast periods of time. On the forefinger glittered a ring; and theuniverse from which I had come was but a spot of light upon the ring'scurvature. And the thing that the hand gripped had the likeness of a blackrod. Through a long eternity I watched this Hand, with the ring and therod, marvelling and fearing and waiting helplessly on what might follow. It seemed as though nothing could follow: that I should watch for ever, seeing only the Hand and the thing it held, and understanding nothing ofits import. Was the whole universe but a refracting speck upon somegreater Being? Were our worlds but the atoms of another universe, andthose again of another, and so on through an endless progression? And whatwas I? Was I indeed immaterial? A vague persuasion of a body gatheringabout me came into my suspense. The abysmal darkness about the Hand filledwith impalpable suggestions, with uncertain, fluctuating shapes. 

Then, suddenly, came a sound, like the sound of a tolling bell: faint, asif infinitely far; muffled, as though heard through thick swathings ofdarkness: a deep, vibrating resonance, with vast gulfs of silence betweeneach stroke. And the Hand appeared to tighten on the rod. And I saw farabove the Hand, towards the apex of the darkness, a circle of dimphosphorescence, a ghostly sphere whence these sounds came throbbing; andat the last stroke the Hand vanished, for the hour had come, and I heard anoise of many waters. But the black rod remained as a great band acrossthe sky. And then a voice, which seemed to run to the uttermost parts ofspace, spoke, saying, "There will be no more pain. "

At that an almost intolerable gladness and radiance rushed in upon me, andI saw the circle shining white and bright, and the rod black and shining, and many things else distinct and clear. And the circle was the face ofthe clock, and the rod the rail of my bed. Haddon was standing at thefoot, against the rail, with a small pair of scissors on his fingers; andthe hands of my clock on the mantel over his shoulder were claspedtogether over the hour of twelve. Mowbray was washing something in a basinat the octagonal table, and at my side I felt a subdued feeling that couldscarce be spoken of as pain. 

The operation had not killed me. And I perceived, suddenly, that the dullmelancholy of half a year was lifted from my mind. 

 XIII. 

 THE SEA RAIDERS. 

I. 

Until the extraordinary affair at Sidmouth, the peculiar species_Haploteuthis ferox_ was known to science only generically, on thestrength of a half-digested tentacle obtained near the Azores, and adecaying body pecked by birds and nibbled by fish, found early in 1896 byMr. Jennings, near Land's End. 

In no department of zoological science, indeed, are we quite so much inthe dark as with regard to the deep-sea cephalopods. A mere accident, forinstance, it was that led to the Prince of Monaco's discovery of nearly adozen new forms in the summer of 1895, a discovery in which thebefore-mentioned tentacle was included. It chanced that a cachalot waskilled off Terceira by some sperm whalers, and in its last strugglescharged almost to the Prince's yacht, missed it, rolled under, and diedwithin twenty yards of his rudder. And in its agony it threw up a numberof large objects, which the Prince, dimly perceiving they were strange andimportant, was, by a happy expedient, able to secure before they sank. Heset his screws in motion, and kept them circling in the vortices thuscreated until a boat could be lowered. And these specimens were wholecephalopods and fragments of cephalopods, some of gigantic proportions, and almost all of them unknown to science!

It would seem, indeed, that these large and agile creatures, living in themiddle depths of the sea, must, to a large extent, for ever remain unknownto us, since under water they are too nimble for nets, and it is only bysuch rare, unlooked-for accidents that specimens can be obtained. In thecase of _Haploteuthis ferox_, for instance, we are still altogetherignorant of its habitat, as ignorant as we are of the breeding-ground ofthe herring or the sea-ways of the salmon. And zoologists are altogetherat a loss to account for its sudden appearance on our coast. Possibly itwas the stress of a hunger migration that drove it hither out of the deep. But it will be, perhaps, better to avoid necessarily inconclusivediscussion, and to proceed at once with our narrative. 

The first human being to set eyes upon a living _Haploteuthis_--thefirst human being to survive, that is, for there can be little doubt nowthat the wave of bathing fatalities and boating accidents that travelledalong the coast of Cornwall and Devon in early May was due to thiscause--was a retired tea-dealer of the name of Fison, who was stopping ata Sidmouth boarding-house. It was in the afternoon, and he was walkingalong the cliff path between Sidmouth and Ladram Bay. The cliffs in thisdirection are very high, but down the red face of them in one place a kindof ladder staircase has been made. He was near this when his attention wasattracted by what at first he thought to be a cluster of birds strugglingover a fragment of food that caught the sunlight, and glistenedpinkish-white. The tide was right out, and this object was not only farbelow him, but remote across a broad waste of rock reefs covered withdark seaweed and interspersed with silvery shining tidal pools. And hewas, moreover, dazzled by the brightness of the further water. 

In a minute, regarding this again, he perceived that his judgment was infault, for over this struggle circled a number of birds, jackdaws andgulls for the most part, the latter gleaming blindingly when the sunlightsmote their wings, and they seemed minute in comparison with it. And hiscuriosity was, perhaps, aroused all the more strongly because of his firstinsufficient explanations. 

As he had nothing better to do than amuse himself, he decided to make thisobject, whatever it was, the goal of his afternoon walk, instead of LadramBay, conceiving it might perhaps be a great fish of some sort, stranded bysome chance, and flapping about in its distress. And so he hurried downthe long steep ladder, stopping at intervals of thirty feet or so to takebreath and scan the mysterious movement. 

At the foot of the cliff he was, of course, nearer his object than he hadbeen; but, on the other hand, it now came up against the incandescent sky, beneath the sun, so as to seem dark and indistinct. Whatever was pinkishof it was now hidden by a skerry of weedy boulders. But he perceived thatit was made up of seven rounded bodies distinct or connected, and that thebirds kept up a constant croaking and screaming, but seemed afraid toapproach it too closely. 

Mr. Fison, torn by curiosity, began picking his way across the wave-wornrocks, and finding the wet seaweed that covered them thickly rendered themextremely slippery, he stopped, removed his shoes and socks, and rolledhis trousers above his knees. His object was, of course, merely to avoidstumbling into the rocky pools about him, and perhaps he was rather glad, as all men are, of an excuse to resume, even for a moment, the sensationsof his boyhood. At any rate, it is to this, no doubt, that he owes hislife. 

He approached his mark with all the assurance which the absolute securityof this country against all forms of animal life gives its inhabitants. The round bodies moved to and fro, but it was only when he surmounted theskerry of boulders I have mentioned that he realised the horrible natureof the discovery. It came upon him with some suddenness. 

The rounded bodies fell apart as he came into sight over the ridge, anddisplayed the pinkish object to be the partially devoured body of a humanbeing, but whether of a man or woman he was unable to say. And the roundedbodies were new and ghastly-looking creatures, in shape somewhatresembling an octopus, with huge and very long and flexible tentacles, coiled copiously on the ground. The skin had a glistening texture, unpleasant to see, like shiny leather. The downward bend of thetentacle-surrounded mouth, the curious excrescence at the bend, thetentacles, and the large intelligent eyes, gave the creatures a grotesquesuggestion of a face. They were the size of a fair-sized swine about thebody, and the tentacles seemed to him to be many feet in length. Therewere, he thinks, seven or eight at least of the creatures. Twenty yardsbeyond them, amid the surf of the now returning tide, two others wereemerging from the sea. 

Their bodies lay flatly on the rocks, and their eyes regarded him withevil interest; but it does not appear that Mr. Fison was afraid, or thathe realised that he was in any danger. Possibly his confidence is to beascribed to the limpness of their attitudes. But he was horrified, ofcourse, and intensely excited and indignant, at such revolting creaturespreying upon human flesh. He thought they had chanced upon a drowned body. He shouted to them, with the idea of driving them off, and finding theydid not budge, cast about him, picked up a big rounded lump of rock, andflung it at one. 

And then, slowly uncoiling their tentacles, they all began moving towardshim--creeping at first deliberately, and making a soft purring sound toeach other. 

In a moment Mr. Fison realised that he was in danger. He shouted again, threw both his boots, and started off, with a leap, forthwith. Twentyyards off he stopped and faced about, judging them slow, and behold! thetentacles of their leader were already pouring over the rocky ridge onwhich he had just been standing!

At that he shouted again, but this time not threatening, but a cry ofdismay, and began jumping, striding, slipping, wading across the unevenexpanse between him and the beach. The tall red cliffs seemed suddenly ata vast distance, and he saw, as though they were creatures in anotherworld, two minute workmen engaged in the repair of the ladder-way, andlittle suspecting the race for life that was beginning below them. At onetime he could hear the creatures splashing in the pools not a dozen feetbehind him, and once he slipped and almost fell. 

They chased him to the very foot of the cliffs, and desisted only when hehad been joined by the workmen at the foot of the ladder-way up the cliff. All three of the men pelted them with stones for a time, and then hurriedto the cliff top and along the path towards Sidmouth, to secure assistanceand a boat, and to rescue the desecrated body from the clutches of theseabominable creatures. 

II. 

And, as if he had not already been in sufficient peril that day, Mr. Fisonwent with the boat to point out the exact spot of his adventure. 

As the tide was down, it required a considerable detour to reach the spot, and when at last they came off the ladder-way, the mangled body haddisappeared. The water was now running in, submerging first one slab ofslimy rock and then another, and the four men in the boat--the workmen, that is, the boatman, and Mr. Fison--now turned their attention from thebearings off shore to the water beneath the keel. 

At first they could see little below them, save a dark jungle oflaminaria, with an occasional darting fish. Their minds were set onadventure, and they expressed their disappointment freely. But presentlythey saw one of the monsters swimming through the water seaward, with acurious rolling motion that suggested to Mr. Fison the spinning roll of acaptive balloon. Almost immediately after, the waving streamers oflaminaria were extraordinarily perturbed, parted for a moment, and threeof these beasts became darkly visible, struggling for what was probablysome fragment of the drowned man. In a moment the copious olive-greenribbons had poured again over this writhing group. 

At that all four men, greatly excited, began beating the water with oarsand shouting, and immediately they saw a tumultuous movement among theweeds. They desisted to see more clearly, and as soon as the water wassmooth, they saw, as it seemed to them, the whole sea bottom among theweeds set with eyes. 

"Ugly swine!" cried one of the men. "Why, there's dozens!"

And forthwith the things began to rise through the water about them. Mr. Fison has since described to the writer this startling eruption out of thewaving laminaria meadows. To him it seemed to occupy a considerable time, but it is probable that really it was an affair of a few seconds only. Fora time nothing but eyes, and then he speaks of tentacles streaming out andparting the weed fronds this way and that. Then these things, growinglarger, until at last the bottom was hidden by their intercoiling forms, and the tips of tentacles rose darkly here and there into the air abovethe swell of the waters. 

One came up boldly to the side of the boat, and clinging to this withthree of its sucker-set tentacles, threw four others over the gunwale, asif with an intention either of oversetting the boat or of clambering intoit. Mr. Fison at once caught up the boat-hook, and, jabbing furiously atthe soft tentacles, forced it to desist. He was struck in the back andalmost pitched overboard by the boatman, who was using his oar to resist asimilar attack on the other side of the boat. But the tentacles on eitherside at once relaxed their hold, slid out of sight, and splashed into thewater. 

"We'd better get out of this, " said Mr. Fison, who was tremblingviolently. He went to the tiller, while the boatman and one of the workmenseated themselves and began rowing. The other workman stood up in the forepart of the boat, with the boat-hook, ready to strike any more tentaclesthat might appear. Nothing else seems to have been said. Mr. Fison hadexpressed the common feeling beyond amendment. In a hushed, scared mood, with faces white and drawn, they set about escaping from the position intowhich they had so recklessly blundered. 

But the oars had scarcely dropped into the water before dark, tapering, serpentine ropes had bound them, and were about the rudder; and creepingup the sides of the boat with a looping motion came the suckers again. Themen gripped their oars and pulled, but it was like trying to move a boatin a floating raft of weeds. "Help here!" cried the boatman, and Mr. Fisonand the second workman rushed to help lug at the oar. 

Then the man with the boat-hook--his name was Ewan, or Ewen--sprang upwith a curse and began striking downward over the side, as far as he couldreach, at the bank of tentacles that now clustered along the boat'sbottom. And, at the same time, the two rowers stood up to get a betterpurchase for the recovery of their oars. The boatman handed his to Mr. Fison, who lugged desperately, and, meanwhile, the boatman opened a bigclasp-knife, and leaning over the side of the boat, began hacking at thespiring arms upon the oar shaft. 

Mr. Fison, staggering with the quivering rocking of the boat, his teethset, his breath coming short, and the veins starting on his hands as hepulled at his oar, suddenly cast his eyes seaward. And there, not fiftyyards off, across the long rollers of the incoming tide, was a large boatstanding in towards them, with three women and a little child in it. Aboatman was rowing, and a little man in a pink-ribboned straw hat andwhites stood in the stern hailing them. For a moment, of course, Mr. Fisonthought of help, and then he thought of the child. He abandoned his oarforthwith, threw up his arms in a frantic gesture, and screamed to theparty in the boat to keep away "for God's sake!" It says much for themodesty and courage of Mr. Fison that he does not seem to be aware thatthere was any quality of heroism in his action at this juncture. The oarhe had abandoned was at once drawn under, and presently reappearedfloating about twenty yards away. 

At the same moment Mr. Fison felt the boat under him lurch violently, anda hoarse scream, a prolonged cry of terror from Hill, the boatman, causedhim to forget the party of excursionists altogether. He turned, and sawHill crouching by the forward row-lock, his face convulsed with terror, and his right arm over the side and drawn tightly down. He gave now asuccession of short, sharp cries, "Oh! oh! oh!--oh!" Mr. Fison believesthat he must have been hacking at the tentacles below the water-line, andhave been grasped by them, but, of course, it is quite impossible to saynow certainly what had happened. The boat was heeling over, so that thegunwale was within ten inches of the water, and both Ewan and the otherlabourer were striking down into the water, with oar and boat-hook, oneither side of Hill's arm. Mr. Fison instinctively placed himself tocounterpoise them. 

Then Hill, who was a burly, powerful man, made a strenuous effort, androse almost to a standing position. He lifted his arm, indeed, clean outof the water. Hanging to it was a complicated tangle of brown ropes, andthe eyes of one of the brutes that had hold of him, glaring straight andresolute, showed momentarily above the surface. The boat heeled more andmore, and the green-brown water came pouring in a cascade over the side. Then Hill slipped and fell with his ribs across the side, and his arm andthe mass of tentacles about it splashed back into the water. He rolledover; his boot kicked Mr. Fison's knee as that gentleman rushed forward toseize him, and in another moment fresh tentacles had whipped about hiswaist and neck, and after a brief, convulsive struggle, in which the boatwas nearly capsized, Hill was lugged overboard. The boat righted with aviolent jerk that all but sent Mr. Fison over the other side, and hid thestruggle in the water from his eyes. 

He stood staggering to recover his balance for a moment, and as he did sohe became aware that the struggle and the inflowing tide had carried themclose upon the weedy rocks again. Not four yards off a table of rock stillrose in rhythmic movements above the in-wash of the tide. In a moment Mr. Fison seized the oar from Ewan, gave one vigorous stroke, then droppingit, ran to the bows and leapt. He felt his feet slide over the rock, and, by a frantic effort, leapt again towards a further mass. He stumbled overthis, came to his knees, and rose again. 

"Look out!" cried someone, and a large drab body struck him. He wasknocked flat into a tidal pool by one of the workmen, and as he went downhe heard smothered, choking cries, that he believed at the time came fromHill. Then he found himself marvelling at the shrillness and variety ofHill's voice. Someone jumped over him, and a curving rush of foamy waterpoured over him, and passed. He scrambled to his feet dripping, andwithout looking seaward, ran as fast as his terror would let himshoreward. Before him, over the flat space of scattered rocks, stumbledthe two work-men--one a dozen yards in front of the other. 

He looked over his shoulder at last, and seeing that he was not pursued, faced about. He was astonished. From the moment of the rising of thecephalopods out of the water he had been acting too swiftly to fullycomprehend his actions. Now it seemed to him as if he had suddenly jumpedout of an evil dream. 

For there were the sky, cloudless and blazing with the afternoon sun, thesea weltering under its pitiless brightness, the soft creamy foam of thebreaking water, and the low, long, dark ridges of rock. The righted boatfloated, rising and falling gently on the swell about a dozen yards fromshore. Hill and the monsters, all the stress and tumult of that fiercefight for life, had vanished as though they had never been. 

Mr. Fison's heart was beating violently; he was throbbing to thefinger-tips, and his breath came deep. 

There was something missing. For some seconds he could not think clearlyenough what this might be. Sun, sky, sea, rocks--what was it? Then heremembered the boat-load of excursionists. It had vanished. He wonderedwhether he had imagined it. He turned, and saw the two workmen standingside by side under the projecting masses of the tall pink cliffs. Hehesitated whether he should make one last attempt to save the man Hill. His physical excitement seemed to desert him suddenly, and leave himaimless and helpless. He turned shoreward, stumbling and wading towardshis two companions. 

He looked back again, and there were now two boats floating, and the onefarthest out at sea pitched clumsily, bottom upward. 

III. 

So it was _Haploteuthis ferox_ made its appearance upon theDevonshire coast. So far, this has been its most serious aggression. Mr. Fison's account, taken together with the wave of boating and bathingcasualties to which I have already alluded, and the absence of fish fromthe Cornish coasts that year, points clearly to a shoal of these voraciousdeep-sea monsters prowling slowly along the sub-tidal coast-line. Hungermigration has, I know, been suggested as the force that drove them hither;but, for my own part, I prefer to believe the alternative theory ofHemsley. Hemsley holds that a pack or shoal of these creatures may havebecome enamoured of human flesh by the accident of a foundered shipsinking among them, and have wandered in search of it out of theiraccustomed zone; first waylaying and following ships, and so coming to ourshores in the wake of the Atlantic traffic. But to discuss Hemsley'scogent and admirably-stated arguments would be out of place here. 

It would seem that the appetites of the shoal were satisfied by the catchof eleven people--for, so far as can be ascertained, there were ten peoplein the second boat, and certainly these creatures gave no further signs oftheir presence off Sidmouth that day. The coast between Seaton andBudleigh Salterton was patrolled all that evening and night by fourPreventive Service boats, the men in which were armed with harpoons andcutlasses, and as the evening advanced, a number of more or less similarlyequipped expeditions, organised by private individuals, joined them. Mr. Fison took no part in any of these expeditions. 

About midnight excited hails were heard from a boat about a couple ofmiles out at sea to the south-east of Sidmouth, and a lantern was seenwaving in a strange manner to and fro and up and down. The nearer boats atonce hurried towards the alarm. The venturesome occupants of the boat--aseaman, a curate, and two schoolboys--had actually seen the monsterspassing under their boat. The creatures, it seems, like most deep-seaorganisms, were phosphorescent, and they had been floating, five fathomsdeep or so, like creatures of moonshine through the blackness of thewater, their tentacles retracted and as if asleep, rolling over and over, and moving slowly in a wedge-like formation towards the south-east. 

These people told their story in gesticulated fragments, as first one boatdrew alongside and then another. At last there was a little fleet of eightor nine boats collected together, and from them a tumult, like the chatterof a market-place, rose into the stillness of the night. There was littleor no disposition to pursue the shoal, the people had neither weapons norexperience for such a dubious chase, and presently--even with a certainrelief, it may be--the boats turned shoreward. 

And now to tell what is perhaps the most astonishing fact in this wholeastonishing raid. We have not the slightest knowledge of the subsequentmovements of the shoal, although the whole south-west coast was now alertfor it. But it may, perhaps, be significant that a cachalot was strandedoff Sark on June 3. Two weeks and three days after this Sidmouth affair, aliving _Haploteuthis_ came ashore on Calais sands. It was alive, because several witnesses saw its tentacles moving in a convulsive way. But it is probable that it was dying. A gentleman named Pouchet obtained arifle and shot it. 

That was the last appearance of a living _Haploteuthis_. No otherswere seen on the French coast. On the 15th of June a dead carcass, almostcomplete, was washed ashore near Torquay, and a few days later a boat fromthe Marine Biological station, engaged in dredging off Plymouth, picked upa rotting specimen, slashed deeply with a cutlass wound. How the formerhad come by its death it is impossible to say. And on the last day ofJune, Mr. Egbert Caine, an artist, bathing near Newlyn, threw up his arms, shrieked, and was drawn under. A friend bathing with him made no attemptto save him, but swam at once for the shore. This is the last fact to tellof this extraordinary raid from the deeper sea. Whether it is really thelast of these horrible creatures it is, as yet, premature to say. But itis believed, and certainly it is to be hoped, that they have returned now, and returned for good, to the sunless depths of the middle seas, out ofwhich they have so strangely and so mysteriously arisen. 

 XIV. 

 THE OBLITERATED MAN. 

I was--you shall hear immediately why I am not now--Egbert CraddockCummins. The name remains. I am still (Heaven help me!) Dramatic Critic tothe _Fiery Cross_. What I shall be in a little while I do not know. Iwrite in great trouble and confusion of mind. I will do what I can to makemyself clear in the face of terrible difficulties. You must bear with me alittle. When a man is rapidly losing his own identity, he naturally findsa difficulty in expressing himself. I will make it perfectly plain in aminute, when once I get my grip upon the story. Let me see--where_am_ I? I wish I knew. Ah, I have it! Dead self! Egbert CraddockCummins!

In the past I should have disliked writing anything quite so full of "I"as this story must be. It is full of "I's" before and behind, like thebeast in Revelation--the one with a head like a calf, I am afraid. But mytastes have changed since I became a Dramatic Critic and studied themasters--G. A. S. , G. B. S. , G. R. S. , and the others. Everything has changedsince then. At least the story is about myself--so that there is someexcuse for me. And it is really not egotism, because, as I say, sincethose days my identity has undergone an entire alteration. 

That past!... I was--in those days--rather a nice fellow, rather shy--taste for grey in my clothes, weedy little moustache, face "interesting, "slight stutter which I had caught in my early life from a schoolfellow. Engaged to a very nice girl, named Delia. Fairly new, she was--cigarettes--liked me because I was human and original. Considered I waslike Lamb--on the strength of the stutter, I believe. Father, an eminentauthority on postage stamps. She read a great deal in the British Museum. (A perfect pairing ground for literary people, that British Museum--youshould read George Egerton and Justin Huntly M'Carthy and Gissing and therest of them. ) We loved in our intellectual way, and shared the brightesthopes. (All gone now. ) And her father liked me because I seemed honestlyeager to hear about stamps. She had no mother. Indeed, I had the happiestprospects a young man could have. I never went to theatres in those days. My Aunt Charlotte before she died had told me not to. 

Then Barnaby, the editor of the _Fiery Cross_, made me--in spite ofmy spasmodic efforts to escape--Dramatic Critic. He is a fine, healthyman, Barnaby, with an enormous head of frizzy black hair and a convincingmanner, and he caught me on the staircase going to see Wembly. He had beendining, and was more than usually buoyant. "Hullo, Cummins!" he said. "Thevery man I want!" He caught me by the shoulder or the collar or something, ran me up the little passage, and flung me over the waste-paper basketinto the arm-chair in his office. "Pray be seated, " he said, as he did so. Then he ran across the room and came back with some pink and yellowtickets and pushed them into my hand. "Opera Comique, " he said, "Thursday;Friday, the Surrey; Saturday, the Frivolity. That's all, I think. "

"But--" I began. 

"Glad you're free, " he said, snatching some proofs off the desk andbeginning to read. 

"I don't quite understand, " I said. 

"_Eigh_?" he said, at the top of his voice, as though he thought Ihad gone and was startled at my remark. 

"Do you want me to criticise these plays?"

"Do something with 'em... Did you think it was a treat?"

"But I can't. "

"Did you call me a fool?"

"Well, I've never been to a theatre in my life. "

"Virgin soil. "

"But I don't know anything about it, you know. "

"That's just it. New view. No habits. No _clichés_ in stock. Ours isa live paper, not a bag of tricks. None of your clockwork professionaljournalism in this office. And I can rely on your integrity----"

"But I've conscientious scruples----"

He caught me up suddenly and put me outside his door. "Go and talk toWembly about that, " he said. "He'll explain. "

As I stood perplexed, he opened the door again, said, "I forgot this, "thrust a fourth ticket into my hand (it was for that night--in twentyminutes' time) and slammed the door upon me. His expression was quitecalm, but I caught his eye. 

I hate arguments. I decided that I would take his hint and become (to myown destruction) a Dramatic Critic. I walked slowly down the passage toWembly. That Barnaby has a remarkable persuasive way. He has made fewsuggestions during our very pleasant intercourse of four years that he hasnot ultimately won me round to adopting. It may be, of course, that I amof a yielding disposition; certainly I am too apt to take my colour frommy circumstances. It is, indeed, to my unfortunate susceptibility to vividimpressions that all my misfortunes are due. I have already alluded to theslight stammer I had acquired from a schoolfellow in my youth. However, this is a digression... I went home in a cab to dress. 

I will not trouble the reader with my thoughts about the first-nightaudience, strange assembly as it is, --those I reserve for my Memoirs, --northe humiliating story of how I got lost during the _entr'acte_ in alot of red plush passages, and saw the third act from the gallery. Theonly point upon which I wish to lay stress was the remarkable effect ofthe acting upon me. You must remember I had lived a quiet and retiredlife, and had never been to the theatre before, and that I am extremelysensitive to vivid impressions. At the risk of repetition I must insistupon these points. 

The first effect was a profound amazement, not untinctured by alarm. Thephenomenal unnaturalness of acting is a thing discounted in the minds ofmost people by early visits to the theatre. They get used to the fantasticgestures, the flamboyant emotions, the weird mouthings, melodioussnortings, agonising yelps, lip-gnawings, glaring horrors, and otheremotional symbolism of the stage. It becomes at last a mere deaf-and-dumblanguage to them, which they read intelligently _pari passu_ with thehearing of the dialogue. But all this was new to me. The thing was calleda modern comedy, the people were supposed to be English and were dressedlike fashionable Americans of the current epoch, and I fell into thenatural error of supposing that the actors were trying to represent humanbeings. I looked round on my first-night audience with a kind of wonder, discovered--as all new Dramatic Critics do--that it rested with me toreform the Drama, and, after a supper choked with emotion, went off to theoffice to write a column, piebald with "new paragraphs" (as all my stuffis--it fills out so) and purple with indignation. Barnaby was delighted. 

But I could not sleep that night. I dreamt of actors--actors glaring, actors smiting their chests, actors flinging out a handful of extendedfingers, actors smiling bitterly, laughing despairingly, fallinghopelessly, dying idiotically. I got up at eleven with a slight headache, read my notice in the _Fiery Cross_, breakfasted, and went back to myroom to shave, (It's my habit to do so. ) Then an odd thing happened. Icould not find my razor. Suddenly it occurred to me that I had notunpacked it the day before. 

"Ah!" said I, in front of the looking-glass. Then "Hullo!"

Quite involuntarily, when I had thought of my portmanteau, I had flung upthe left arm (fingers fully extended) and clutched at my diaphragm with myright hand. I am an acutely self-conscious man at all times. The gesturestruck me as absolutely novel for me. I repeated it, for my ownsatisfaction. "Odd!" Then (rather puzzled) I turned to my portmanteau. 

After shaving, my mind reverted to the acting I had seen, and Ientertained myself before the cheval glass with some imitations ofJafferay's more exaggerated gestures. "Really, one might think it adisease, " I said--"Stage-Walkitis!" (There's many a truth spoken in jest. )Then, if I remember rightly, I went off to see Wembly, and afterwardslunched at the British Museum with Delia. We actually spoke about ourprospects, in the light of my new appointment. 

But that appointment was the beginning of my downfall. From that day Inecessarily became a persistent theatre-goer, and almost insensibly Ibegan to change. The next thing I noticed after the gesture about therazor was to catch myself bowing ineffably when I met Delia, and stoopingin an old-fashioned, courtly way over her hand. Directly I caught myself, I straightened myself up and became very uncomfortable. I remember shelooked at me curiously. Then, in the office, I found myself doing "nervousbusiness, " fingers on teeth, when Barnaby asked me a question I could notvery well answer. Then, in some trifling difference with Delia, I claspedmy hand to my brow. And I pranced through my social transactions at timessingularly like an actor! I tried not to--no one could be more keenlyalive to the arrant absurdity of the histrionic bearing. And I did!

It began to dawn on me what it all meant. The acting, I saw, was too muchfor my delicately-strung nervous system. I have always, I know, been tooamenable to the suggestions of my circumstances. Night after night ofconcentrated attention to the conventional attitudes and intonation of theEnglish stage was gradually affecting my speech and carriage. I was givingway to the infection of sympathetic imitation. Night after night myplastic nervous system took the print of some new amazing gesture, somenew emotional exaggeration--and retained it. A kind of theatrical veneerthreatened to plate over and obliterate my private individualityaltogether. I saw myself in a kind of vision. Sitting by myself one night, my new self seemed to me to glide, posing and gesticulating, across theroom. He clutched his throat, he opened his fingers, he opened his legs inwalking like a high-class marionette. He went from attitude to attitude. He might have been clockwork. Directly after this I made an ineffectualattempt to resign my theatrical work. But Barnaby persisted in talkingabout the Polywhiddle Divorce all the time I was with him, and I could getno opportunity of saying what I wished. 

And then Delia's manner began to change towards me. The ease of ourintercourse vanished. I felt she was learning to dislike me. I grinned, and capered, and scowled, and posed at her in a thousand ways, andknew--with what a voiceless agony!--that I did it all the time. I tried toresign again, and Barnaby talked about "X" and "Z" and "Y" in the _NewReview, _ and gave me a strong cigar to smoke, and so routed me. Andthen I walked up the Assyrian Gallery in the manner of Irving to meetDelia, and so precipitated the crisis. 

"Ah!--_Dear_!" I said, with more sprightliness and emotion in myvoice than had ever been in all my life before I became (to my ownundoing) a Dramatic Critic. 

She held out her hand rather coldly, scrutinising my face as she did so. Iprepared, with a new-won grace, to walk by her side. "Egbert, " she said, standing still, and thought. Then she looked at me. 

I said nothing. I felt what was coming. I tried to be the old EgbertCraddock Cummins of shambling gait and stammering sincerity, whom sheloved, but I felt even as I did so that I was a new thing, a thing ofsurging emotions and mysterious fixity--like no human being that everlived, except upon the stage. "Egbert, " she said, "you are not yourself. "

"Ah!" Involuntarily I clutched my diaphragm and averted my head (as is theway with them). 

"There!" she said. 

"_What do you mean_?" I said, whispering in vocal italics--you knowhow they do it--turning on her, perplexity on face, right hand down, lefton brow. I knew quite well what she meant. I knew quite well the dramaticunreality of my behaviour. But I struggled against it in vain. "What doyou mean?" I said, and, in a kind of hoarse whisper, "I don't understand!"

She really looked as though she disliked me. "What do you keep on posingfor?" she said. "I don't like it. You didn't use to. "

"Didn't use to!" I said slowly, repeating this twice. I glared up and downthe gallery with short, sharp glances. "We are alone, " I said swiftly. "_Listen!_" I poked my forefinger towards her, and glared at her. "I am under a curse. "

I saw her hand tighten upon her sunshade. "You are under some badinfluence or other, " said Delia. "You should give it up. I never knewanyone change as you have done. "

"Delia!" I said, lapsing into the pathetic. "Pity me, Augh! Delia!_Pit_--y me!"

She eyed me critically. "_Why_ you keep playing the fool like this Idon't know, " she said. "Anyhow, I really cannot go about with a man whobehaves as you do. You made us both ridiculous on Wednesday. Frankly, Idislike you, as you are now. I met you here to tell you so--as it's aboutthe only place where we can be sure of being alone together----"

"Delia!" said I, with intensity, knuckles of clenched hands white. "Youdon't mean----"

"I do, " said Delia. "A woman's lot is sad enough at the best of times. Butwith you----"

I clapped my hand on my brow. 

"So, good-bye, " said Delia, without emotion. 

"Oh, Delia!" I said. "Not _this_?"

"Good-bye, Mr. Cummins, " she said. 

By a violent effort I controlled myself and touched her hand. I tried tosay some word of explanation to her. She looked into my working face andwinced. "I _must_ do it, " she said hopelessly. Then she turned fromme and began walking rapidly down the gallery. 

Heavens! How the human agony cried within me! I loved Delia. But nothingfound expression--I was already too deeply crusted with my acquired self. 

"Good-baye!" I said at last, watching her retreating figure. How I hatedmyself for doing it! After she had vanished, I repeated in a dreamy way, "Good-baye!" looking hopelessly round me. Then, with a kind ofheart-broken cry, I shook my clenched fists in the air, staggered to thepedestal of a winged figure, buried my face in my arms, and made myshoulders heave. Something within me said "Ass!" as I did so. (I had thegreatest difficulty in persuading the Museum policeman, who was attractedby my cry of agony, that I was not intoxicated, but merely suffering froma transient indisposition. )

But even this great sorrow has not availed to save me from my fate. I seeit; everyone sees it: I grow more "theatrical" every day. And no one couldbe more painfully aware of the pungent silliness of theatrical ways. Thequiet, nervous, but pleasing E. C. Cummins vanishes. I cannot save him. Iam driven like a dead leaf before the winds of March. My tailor evenenters into the spirit of my disorder. He has a peculiar sense of what isfitting. I tried to get a dull grey suit from him this spring, and hefoisted a brilliant blue upon me, and I see he has put braid down thesides of my new dress trousers. My hairdresser insists upon giving me a"wave. "

I am beginning to associate with actors. I detest them, but it is only intheir company that I can feel I am not glaringly conspicuous. Their talkinfects me. I notice a growing tendency to dramatic brevity, to dashes andpauses in my style, to a punctuation of bows and attitudes. Barnaby hasremarked it too. I offended Wembly by calling him "Dear Boy" yesterday. Idread the end, but I cannot escape from it. 

The fact is, I am being obliterated. Living a grey, retired life all myyouth, I came to the theatre a delicate sketch of a man, a thing of tintsand faint lines. Their gorgeous colouring has effaced me altogether. People forget how much mode of expression, method of movement, are amatter of contagion. I have heard of stage-struck people before, andthought it a figure of speech. I spoke of it jestingly, as a disease. Itis no jest. It is a disease. And I have got it badly! Deep down within meI protest against the wrong done to my personality--unavailingly. Forthree hours or more a week I have to go and concentrate my attention onsome fresh play, and the suggestions of the drama strengthen their awfulhold upon me. My manners grow so flamboyant, my passions so professional, that I doubt, as I said at the outset, whether it is really myself thatbehaves in such a manner. I feel merely the core to this dramatic casing, that grows thicker and presses upon me--me and mine. I feel like KingJohn's abbot in his cope of lead. 

I doubt, indeed, whether I should not abandon the struggle altogether--leave this sad world of ordinary life for which I am so ill fitted, abandon the name of Cummins for some professional pseudonym, complete myself-effacement, and--a thing of tricks and tatters, of posing andpretence--go upon the stage. It seems my only resort--"to hold the mirrorup to Nature. " For in the ordinary life, I will confess, no one now seemsto regard me as both sane and sober. Only upon the stage, I feelconvinced, will people take me seriously. That will be the end of it. I_know_ that will be the end of it. And yet ... I will frankly confess... All that marks off your actor from your common man ... I_detest_. I am still largely of my Aunt Charlotte's opinion, thatplay-acting is unworthy of a pure-minded man's attention, much moreparticipation. Even now I would resign my dramatic criticism and try arest. Only I can't get hold of Barnaby. Letters of resignation he nevernotices. He says it is against the etiquette of journalism to write toyour Editor. And when I go to see him, he gives me another big cigar andsome strong whisky and soda, and then something always turns up to preventmy explanation. 

 XV. 

 THE PLATTNER STORY. 

Whether the story of Gottfried Plattner is to be credited or not is apretty question in the value of evidence. On the one hand, we have sevenwitnesses--to be perfectly exact, we have six and a half pairs of eyes, and one undeniable fact; and on the other we have--what is it?--prejudice, common-sense, the inertia of opinion. Never were there seven morehonest-seeming witnesses; never was there a more undeniable fact than theinversion of Gottfried Plattner's anatomical structure, and--never wasthere a more preposterous story than the one they have to tell! The mostpreposterous part of the story is the worthy Gottfried's contribution (forI count him as one of the seven). Heaven forbid that I should be led intogiving countenance to superstition by a passion for impartiality, and socome to share the fate of Eusapia's patrons! Frankly, I believe there issomething crooked about this business of Gottfried Plattner; but what thatcrooked factor is, I will admit as frankly, I do not know. I have beensurprised at the credit accorded to the story in the most unexpected andauthoritative quarters. The fairest way to the reader, however, will befor me to tell it without further comment. 

Gottfried Plattner is, in spite of his name, a freeborn Englishman. Hisfather was an Alsatian who came to England in the 'sixties, married arespectable English girl of unexceptionable antecedents, and died, after awholesome and uneventful life (devoted, I understand, chiefly to thelaying of parquet flooring), in 1887. Gottfried's age is seven-and-twenty. He is, by virtue of his heritage of three languages, Modern LanguagesMaster in a small private school in the south of England. To the casualobserver he is singularly like any other Modern Languages Master in anyother small private school. His costume is neither very costly nor veryfashionable, but, on the other hand, it is not markedly cheap or shabby;his complexion, like his height and his bearing, is inconspicuous. Youwould notice, perhaps, that, like the majority of people, his face was notabsolutely symmetrical, his right eye a little larger than the left, andhis jaw a trifle heavier on the right side. If you, as an ordinarycareless person, were to bare his chest and feel his heart beating, youwould probably find it quite like the heart of anyone else. But here youand the trained observer would part company. If you found his heart quiteordinary, the trained observer would find it quite otherwise. And once thething was pointed out to you, you too would perceive the peculiarityeasily enough. It is that Gottfried's heart beats on the right side of hisbody. 

Now, that is not the only singularity of Gottfried's structure, althoughit is the only one that would appeal to the untrained mind. Carefulsounding of Gottfried's internal arrangements by a well-known surgeonseems to point to the fact that all the other unsymmetrical parts of hisbody are similarly misplaced. The right lobe of his liver is on the leftside, the left on his right; while his lungs, too, are similarlycontraposed. What is still more singular, unless Gottfried is a consummateactor, we must believe that his right hand has recently become his left. Since the occurrences we are about to consider (as impartially aspossible), he has found the utmost difficulty in writing, except fromright to left across the paper with his left hand. He cannot throw withhis right hand, he is perplexed at meal-times between knife and fork, andhis ideas of the rule of the road--he is a cyclist--are still a dangerousconfusion. And there is not a scrap of evidence to show that before theseoccurrences Gottfried was at all left-handed. 

There is yet another wonderful fact in this preposterous business. Gottfried produces three photographs of himself. You have him at the ageof five or six, thrusting fat legs at you from under a plaid frock, andscowling. In that photograph his left eye is a little larger than hisright, and his jaw is a trifle heavier on the left side. This is thereverse of his present living condition. The photograph of Gottfried atfourteen seems to contradict these facts, but that is because it is one ofthose cheap "Gem" photographs that were then in vogue, taken direct uponmetal, and therefore reversing things just as a looking-glass would. Thethird photograph represents him at one-and-twenty, and confirms the recordof the others. There seems here evidence of the strongest confirmatorycharacter that Gottfried has exchanged his left side for his right. Yethow a human being can be so changed, short of a fantastic and pointlessmiracle, it is exceedingly hard to suggest. 

In one way, of course, these facts might be explicable on the suppositionthat Plattner has undertaken an elaborate mystification, on the strengthof his heart's displacement. Photographs may be faked, and left-handednessimitated. But the character of the man does not lend itself to any suchtheory. He is quiet, practical, unobtrusive, and thoroughly sane, from theNordau standpoint. He likes beer, and smokes moderately, takes walkingexercise daily, and has a healthily high estimate of the value of histeaching. He has a good but untrained tenor voice, and takes a pleasure insinging airs of a popular and cheerful character. He is fond, but notmorbidly fond, of reading, --chiefly fiction pervaded with a vaguely piousoptimism, --sleeps well, and rarely dreams. He is, in fact, the very lastperson to evolve a fantastic fable. Indeed, so far from forcing this storyupon the world, he has been singularly reticent on the matter. He meetsenquirers with a certain engaging--bashfulness is almost the word, thatdisarms the most suspicious. He seems genuinely ashamed that anything sounusual has occurred to him. 

It is to be regretted that Plattner's aversion to the idea of post-mortemdissection may postpone, perhaps for ever, the positive proof that hisentire body has had its left and right sides transposed. Upon that factmainly the credibility of his story hangs. There is no way of taking a manand moving him about in space as ordinary people understand space, thatwill result in our changing his sides. Whatever you do, his right is stillhis right, his left his left. You can do that with a perfectly thin andflat thing, of course. If you were to cut a figure out of paper, anyfigure with a right and left side, you could change its sides simply bylifting it up and turning it over. But with a solid it is different. Mathematical theorists tell us that the only way in which the right andleft sides of a solid body can be changed is by taking that body clean outof space as we know it, --taking it out of ordinary existence, that is, andturning it somewhere outside space. This is a little abstruse, no doubt, but anyone with any knowledge of mathematical theory will assure thereader of its truth. To put the thing in technical language, the curiousinversion of Plattner's right and left sides is proof that he has movedout of our space into what is called the Fourth Dimension, and that he hasreturned again to our world. Unless we choose to consider ourselves thevictims of an elaborate and motiveless fabrication, we are almost bound tobelieve that this has occurred. 

So much for the tangible facts. We come now to the account of thephenomena that attended his temporary disappearance from the world. Itappears that in the Sussexville Proprietary School, Plattner not onlydischarged the duties of Modern Languages Master, but also taughtchemistry, commercial geography, bookkeeping, shorthand, drawing, and anyother additional subject to which the changing fancies of the boys'parents might direct attention. He knew little or nothing of these varioussubjects, but in secondary as distinguished from Board or elementaryschools, knowledge in the teacher is, very properly, by no means sonecessary as high moral character and gentlemanly tone. In chemistry hewas particularly deficient, knowing, he says, nothing beyond the ThreeGases (whatever the three gases may be). As, however, his pupils began byknowing nothing, and derived all their information from him, this causedhim (or anyone) but little inconvenience for several terms. Then a littleboy named Whibble joined the school, who had been educated (it seems) bysome mischievous relative into an inquiring habit of mind. This little boyfollowed Plattner's lessons with marked and sustained interest, and inorder to exhibit his zeal on the subject, brought, at various times, substances for Plattner to analyse. Plattner, flattered by this evidenceof his power of awakening interest, and trusting to the boy's ignorance, analysed these, and even, made general statements as to their composition. Indeed, he was so far stimulated by his pupil as to obtain a work uponanalytical chemistry, and study it during his supervision of the evening'spreparation. He was surprised to find chemistry quite an interestingsubject. 

So far the story is absolutely commonplace. But now the greenish powdercomes upon the scene. The source of that greenish powder seems, unfortunately, lost. Master Whibble tells a tortuous story of finding itdone up in a packet in a disused limekiln near the Downs. It would havebeen an excellent thing for Plattner, and possibly for Master Whibble'sfamily, if a match could have been applied to that powder there and then. The young gentleman certainly did not bring it to school in a packet, butin a common eight-ounce graduated medicine bottle, plugged with masticatednewspaper. He gave it to Plattner at the end of the afternoon school. Fourboys had been detained after school prayers in order to complete someneglected tasks, and Plattner was supervising these in the small class-roomin which the chemical teaching was conducted. The appliances for thepractical teaching of chemistry in the Sussexville Proprietary School, asin most small schools in this country, are characterised by a severesimplicity. They are kept in a small cupboard standing in a recess, andhaving about the same capacity as a common travelling trunk. Plattner, being bored with his passive superintendence, seems to have welcomed theintervention of Whibble with his green powder as an agreeable diversion, and, unlocking this cupboard, proceeded at once with his analyticalexperiments. Whibble sat, luckily for himself, at a safe distance, regarding him. The four malefactors, feigning a profound absorption intheir work, watched him furtively with the keenest interest. For evenwithin the limits of the Three Gases, Plattner's practical chemistry was, I understand, temerarious. 

They are practically unanimous in their account of Plattner's proceedings. He poured a little of the green powder into a test-tube, and tried thesubstance with water, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, and sulphuric acidin succession. Getting no result, he emptied out a little heap--nearlyhalf the bottleful, in fact--upon a slate and tried a match. He held themedicine bottle in his left hand. The stuff began to smoke and melt, andthen exploded with deafening violence and a blinding flash. 

The five boys, seeing the flash and being prepared for catastrophes, ducked below their desks, and were none of them seriously hurt. The windowwas blown out into the playground, and the blackboard on its easel wasupset. The slate was smashed to atoms. Some plaster fell from the ceiling. No other damage was done to the school edifice or appliances, and the boysat first, seeing nothing of Plattner, fancied he was knocked down andlying out of their sight below the desks. They jumped out of their placesto go to his assistance, and were amazed to find the space empty. Beingstill confused by the sudden violence of the report, they hurried to theopen door, under the impression that he must have been hurt, and haverushed out of the room. But Carson, the foremost, nearly collided in thedoorway with the principal, Mr. Lidgett. 

Mr. Lidgett is a corpulent, excitable man with one eye. The boys describehim as stumbling into the room mouthing some of those tempered expletivesirritable schoolmasters accustom themselves to use--lest worse befall. "Wretched mumchancer!" he said. "Where's Mr. Plattner?" The boys areagreed on the very words. ("Wobbler, " "snivelling puppy, " and "mumchancer"are, it seems, among the ordinary small change of Mr. Lidgett's scholasticcommerce. )

Where's Mr. Plattner? That was a question that was to be repeated manytimes in the next few days. It really seemed as though that frantichyperbole, "blown to atoms, " had for once realised itself. There was not avisible particle of Plattner to be seen; not a drop of blood nor a stitchof clothing to be found. Apparently he had been blown clean out ofexistence and left not a wrack behind. Not so much as would cover asixpenny piece, to quote a proverbial expression! The evidence of hisabsolute disappearance as a consequence of that explosion is indubitable. 

It is not necessary to enlarge here upon the commotion excited in theSussexville Proprietary School, and in Sussexville and elsewhere, by thisevent. It is quite possible, indeed, that some of the readers of thesepages may recall the hearing of some remote and dying version of thatexcitement during the last summer holidays. Lidgett, it would seem, dideverything in his power to suppress and minimise the story. He instituteda penalty of twenty-five lines for any mention of Plattner's name amongthe boys, and stated in the schoolroom that he was clearly aware of hisassistant's whereabouts. He was afraid, he explains, that the possibilityof an explosion happening, in spite of the elaborate precautions taken tominimise the practical teaching of chemistry, might injure the reputationof the school; and so might any mysterious quality in Plattner'sdeparture. Indeed, he did everything in his power to make the occurrenceseem as ordinary as possible. In particular, he cross-examined the fiveeye-witnesses of the occurrence so searchingly that they began to doubtthe plain evidence of their senses. But, in spite of these efforts, thetale, in a magnified and distorted state, made a nine days' wonder in thedistrict, and several parents withdrew their sons on colourable pretexts. Not the least remarkable point in the matter is the fact that a largenumber of people in the neighbourhood dreamed singularly vivid dreams ofPlattner during the period of excitement before his return, and that thesedreams had a curious uniformity. In almost all of them Plattner was seen, sometimes singly, sometimes in company, wandering about through acoruscating iridescence. In all cases his face was pale and distressed, and in some he gesticulated towards the dreamer. One or two of the boys, evidently under the influence of nightmare, fancied that Plattnerapproached them with remarkable swiftness, and seemed to look closely intotheir very eyes. Others fled with Plattner from the pursuit of vague andextraordinary creatures of a globular shape. But all these fancies wereforgotten in inquiries and speculations when on the Wednesday next but oneafter the Monday of the explosion, Plattner returned. 

The circumstances of his return were as singular as those of hisdeparture. So far as Mr. Lidgett's somewhat choleric outline can be filledin from Plattner's hesitating statements, it would appear that onWednesday evening, towards the hour of sunset, the former gentleman, having dismissed evening preparation, was engaged in his garden, pickingand eating strawberries, a fruit of which he is inordinately fond. It is alarge old-fashioned garden, secured from observation, fortunately, by ahigh and ivy-covered red-brick wall. Just as he was stooping over aparticularly prolific plant, there was a flash in the air and a heavythud, and before he could look round, some heavy body struck him violentlyfrom behind. He was pitched forward, crushing the strawberries he held inhis hand, and that so roughly, that his silk hat--Mr. Lidgett adheres tothe older ideas of scholastic costume--was driven violently down upon hisforehead, and almost over one eye. This heavy missile, which slid over himsideways and collapsed into a sitting posture among the strawberry plants, proved to be our long-lost Mr. Gottfried Plattner, in an extremelydishevelled condition. He was collarless and hatless, his linen was dirty, and there was blood upon his hands. Mr. Lidgett was so indignant andsurprised that he remained on all-fours, and with his hat jammed down onhis eye, while he expostulated vehemently with Plattner for hisdisrespectful and unaccountable conduct. 

This scarcely idyllic scene completes what I may call the exterior versionof the Plattner story--its exoteric aspect. It is quite unnecessary toenter here into all the details of his dismissal by Mr. Lidgett. Suchdetails, with the full names and dates and references, will be found inthe larger report of these occurrences that was laid before the Societyfor the Investigation of Abnormal Phenomena. The singular transposition ofPlattner's right and left sides was scarcely observed for the first day orso, and then first in connection with his disposition to write from rightto left across the blackboard. He concealed rather than ostended thiscurious confirmatory circumstance, as he considered it would unfavourablyaffect his prospects in a new situation. The displacement of his heart wasdiscovered some months after, when he was having a tooth extracted underanaesthetics. He then, very unwillingly, allowed a cursory surgicalexamination to be made of himself, with a view to a brief account in the_Journal of Anatomy_. That exhausts the statement of the materialfacts; and we may now go on to consider Plattner's account of the matter. 

But first let us clearly differentiate between the preceding portion ofthis story and what is to follow. All I have told thus far is establishedby such evidence as even a criminal lawyer would approve. Every one of thewitnesses is still alive; the reader, if he have the leisure, may hunt thelads out to-morrow, or even brave the terrors of the redoubtable Lidgett, and cross-examine and trap and test to his heart's content; GottfriedPlattner himself, and his twisted heart and his three photographs, areproducible. It may be taken as proved that he did disappear for nine daysas the consequence of an explosion; that he returned almost as violently, under circumstances in their nature annoying to Mr. Lidgett, whatever thedetails of those circumstances may be; and that he returned inverted, justas a reflection returns from a mirror. From the last fact, as I havealready stated, it follows almost inevitably that Plattner, during thosenine days, must have been in some state of existence altogether out ofspace. The evidence to these statements is, indeed, far stronger than thatupon which most murderers are hanged. But for his own particular accountof where he had been, with its confused explanations and wellnighself-contradictory details, we have only Mr. Gottfried Plattner's word. Ido not wish to discredit that, but I must point out--what so many writersupon obscure psychic phenomena fail to do--that we are passing here fromthe practically undeniable to that kind of matter which any reasonable manis entitled to believe or reject as he thinks proper. The previousstatements render it plausible; its discordance with common experiencetilts it towards the incredible. I would prefer not to sway the beam ofthe reader's judgment either way, but simply to tell the story as Plattnertold it me. 

He gave me his narrative, I may state, at my house at Chislehurst, and sosoon as he had left me that evening, I went into my study and wrote downeverything as I remembered it. Subsequently he was good enough to readover a type-written copy, so that its substantial correctness isundeniable. 

He states that at the moment of the explosion he distinctly thought he waskilled. He felt lifted off his feet and driven forcibly backward. It is acurious fact for psychologists that he thought clearly during his backwardflight, and wondered whether he should hit the chemistry cupboard or theblackboard easel. His heels struck ground, and he staggered and fellheavily into a sitting position on something soft and firm. For a momentthe concussion stunned him. He became aware at once of a vivid scent ofsinged hair, and he seemed to hear the voice of Lidgett asking for him. You will understand that for a time his mind was greatly confused. 

At first he was under the impression that he was still standing in theclass-room. He perceived quite distinctly the surprise of the boys and theentry of Mr. Lidgett. He is quite positive upon that score. He did nothear their remarks; but that he ascribed to the deafening effect of theexperiment. Things about him seemed curiously dark and faint, but his mindexplained that on the obvious but mistaken idea that the explosion hadengendered a huge volume of dark smoke. Through the dimness the figures ofLidgett and the boys moved, as faint and silent as ghosts. Plattner's facestill tingled with the stinging heat of the flash. He, was, he says, "allmuddled. " His first definite thoughts seem to have been of his personalsafety. He thought he was perhaps blinded and deafened. He felt his limbsand face in a gingerly manner. Then his perceptions grew clearer, and hewas astonished to miss the old familiar desks and other schoolroomfurniture about him. Only dim, uncertain, grey shapes stood in the placeof these. Then came a thing that made him shout aloud, and awoke hisstunned faculties to instant activity. _Two of the boys, gesticulating, walked one after the other clean through him_! Neither manifested theslightest consciousness of his presence. It is difficult to imagine thesensation he felt. They came against him, he says, with no more force thana wisp of mist. 

Plattner's first thought after that was that he was dead. Having beenbrought up with thoroughly sound views in these matters, however, he was alittle surprised to find his body still about him. His second conclusionwas that he was not dead, but that the others were: that the explosion haddestroyed the Sussexville Proprietary School and every soul in it excepthimself. But that, too, was scarcely satisfactory. He was thrown back uponastonished observation. 

Everything about him was profoundly dark: at first it seemed to have analtogether ebony blackness. Overhead was a black firmament. The only touchof light in the scene was a faint greenish glow at the edge of the sky inone direction, which threw into prominence a horizon of undulating blackhills. This, I say, was his impression at first. As his eye grewaccustomed to the darkness, he began to distinguish a faint quality ofdifferentiating greenish colour in the circumambient night. Against thisbackground the furniture and occupants of the class-room, it seems, stoodout like phosphorescent spectres, faint and impalpable. He extended hishand, and thrust it without an effort through the wall of the room by thefireplace. 

He describes himself as making a strenuous effort to attract attention. Heshouted to Lidgett, and tried to seize the boys as they went to and fro. He only desisted from these attempts when Mrs. Lidgett, whom he (as anAssistant Master) naturally disliked, entered the room. He says thesensation of being in the world, and yet not a part of it, was anextraordinarily disagreeable one. He compared his feelings, not inaptly, to those of a cat watching a mouse through a window. Whenever he made amotion to communicate with the dim, familiar world about him, he found aninvisible, incomprehensible barrier preventing intercourse. 

He then turned his attention to his solid environment. He found themedicine bottle still unbroken in his hand, with the remainder of thegreen powder therein. He put this in his pocket, and began to feel abouthim. Apparently he was sitting on a boulder of rock covered with a velvetymoss. The dark country about him he was unable to see, the faint, mistypicture of the schoolroom blotting it out, but he had a feeling (dueperhaps to a cold wind) that he was near the crest of a hill, and that asteep valley fell away beneath his feet. The green glow along the edge ofthe sky seemed to be growing in extent and intensity. He stood up, rubbinghis eyes. 

It would seem that he made a few steps, going steeply downhill, and thenstumbled, nearly fell, and sat down again upon a jagged mass of rock towatch the dawn. He became aware that the world about him was absolutelysilent. It was as still as it was dark, and though there was a cold windblowing up the hill-face, the rustle of grass, the soughing of the boughsthat should have accompanied it, were absent. He could hear, therefore, ifhe could not see, that the hillside upon which he stood was rocky anddesolate. The green grew brighter every moment, and as it did so a faint, transparent blood-red mingled with, but did not mitigate, the blackness ofthe sky overhead and the rocky desolations about him. Having regard towhat follows, I am inclined to think that that redness may have been anoptical effect due to contrast. Something black fluttered momentarilyagainst the livid yellow-green of the lower sky, and then the thin andpenetrating voice of a bell rose out of the black gulf below him. Anoppressive expectation grew with the growing light. 

It is probable that an hour or more elapsed while he sat there, thestrange green light growing brighter every moment, and spreading slowly, in flamboyant fingers, upward towards the zenith. As it grew, the spectralvision of _our_ world became relatively or absolutely fainter. Probably both, for the time must have been about that of our earthlysunset. So far as his vision of our world went, Plattner, by his few stepsdownhill, had passed through the floor of the class-room, and was now, itseemed, sitting in mid-air in the larger schoolroom downstairs. He saw theboarders distinctly, but much more faintly than he had seen Lidgett. Theywere preparing their evening tasks, and he noticed with interest thatseveral were cheating with their Euclid riders by means of a crib, acompilation whose existence he had hitherto never suspected. As the timepassed, they faded steadily, as steadily as the light of the green dawnincreased. 

Looking down into the valley, he saw that the light had crept far down itsrocky sides, and that the profound blackness of the abyss was now brokenby a minute green glow, like the light of a glow-worm. And almostimmediately the limb of a huge heavenly body of blazing green rose overthe basaltic undulations of the distant hills, and the monstroushill-masses about him came out gaunt and desolate, in green light anddeep, ruddy black shadows. He became aware of a vast number of ball-shapedobjects drifting as thistledown drifts over the high ground. There werenone of these nearer to him than the opposite side of the gorge. The bellbelow twanged quicker and quicker, with something like impatientinsistence, and several lights moved hither and thither. The boys at workat their desks were now almost imperceptibly faint. 

This extinction of our world, when the green sun of this other universerose, is a curious point upon which Plattner insists. During theOther-World night it is difficult to move about, on account of thevividness with which the things of this world are visible. It becomes ariddle to explain why, if this is the case, we in this world catch noglimpse of the Other-World. It is due, perhaps, to the comparativelyvivid illumination of this world of ours. Plattner describes the middayof the Other-World, at its brightest, as not being nearly so bright asthis world at full moon, while its night is profoundly black. Consequently, the amount of light, even in an ordinary dark room, issufficient to render the things of the Other-World invisible, on thesame principle that faint phosphorescence is only visible in theprofoundest darkness. I have tried, since he told me his story, to seesomething of the Other-World by sitting for a long space in aphotographer's dark room at night. I have certainly seen indistinctlythe form of greenish slopes and rocks, but only, I must admit, veryindistinctly indeed. The reader may possibly be more successful. Plattnertells me that since his return he has dreamt and seen and recognisedplaces in the Other-World, but this is probably due to his memoryof these scenes. It seems quite possible that people with unusuallykeen eyesight may occasionally catch a glimpse of this strange Other-Worldabout us. 

However, this is a digression. As the green sun rose, a long street ofblack buildings became perceptible, though only darkly and indistinctly, in the gorge, and after some hesitation, Plattner began to clamber downthe precipitous descent towards them. The descent was long and exceedinglytedious, being so not only by the extraordinary steepness, but also byreason of the looseness of the boulders with which the whole face of thehill was strewn. The noise of his descent--now and then his heels struckfire from the rocks--seemed now the only sound in the universe, for thebeating of the bell had ceased. As he drew nearer, he perceived that thevarious edifices had a singular resemblance to tombs and mausoleums andmonuments, saving only that they were all uniformly black instead of beingwhite, as most sepulchres are. And then he saw, crowding out of thelargest building, very much as people disperse from church, a number ofpallid, rounded, pale-green figures. These dispersed in several directionsabout the broad street of the place, some going through side alleys andreappearing upon the steepness of the hill, others entering some of thesmall black buildings which lined the way. 

At the sight of these things drifting up towards him, Plattner stopped, staring. They were not walking, they were indeed limbless, and they hadthe appearance of human heads, beneath which a tadpole-like body swung. Hewas too astonished at their strangeness, too full, indeed, of strangeness, to be seriously alarmed by them. They drove towards him, in front of thechill wind that was blowing uphill, much as soap-bubbles drive before adraught. And as he looked at the nearest of those approaching, he saw itwas indeed a human head, albeit with singularly large eyes, and wearingsuch an expression of distress and anguish as he had never seen beforeupon mortal countenance. He was surprised to find that it did not turn toregard him, but seemed to be watching and following some unseen movingthing. For a moment he was puzzled, and then it occurred to him that thiscreature was watching with its enormous eyes something that was happeningin the world he had just left. Nearer it came, and nearer, and he was tooastonished to cry out. It made a very faint fretting sound as it cameclose to him. Then it struck his face with a gentle pat--its touch wasvery cold--and drove past him, and upward towards the crest of the hill. 

An extraordinary conviction flashed across Plattner's mind that this headhad a strong likeness to Lidgett. Then he turned his attention to theother heads that were now swarming thickly up the hill-side. None made theslightest sign of recognition. One or two, indeed, came close to his headand almost followed the example of the first, but he dodged convulsivelyout of the way. Upon most of them he saw the same expression of unavailingregret he had seen upon the first, and heard the same faint sounds ofwretchedness from them. One or two wept, and one rolling swiftly uphillwore an expression of diabolical rage. But others were cold, and severalhad a look of gratified interest in their eyes. One, at least, was almostin an ecstasy of happiness. Plattner does not remember that he recognisedany more likenesses in those he saw at this time. 

For several hours, perhaps, Plattner watched these strange thingsdispersing themselves over the hills, and not till long after they hadceased to issue from the clustering black buildings in the gorge, did heresume his downward climb. The darkness about him increased so much thathe had a difficulty in stepping true. Overhead the sky was now a bright, pale green. He felt neither hunger nor thirst. Later, when he did, hefound a chilly stream running down the centre of the gorge, and the raremoss upon the boulders, when he tried it at last in desperation, was goodto eat. 

He groped about among the tombs that ran down the gorge, seeking vaguelyfor some clue to these inexplicable things. After a long time he came tothe entrance of the big mausoleum-like building from which the heads hadissued. In this he found a group of green lights burning upon a kind ofbasaltic altar, and a bell-rope from a belfry overhead hanging down intothe centre of the place. Round the wall ran a lettering of fire in acharacter unknown to him. While he was still wondering at the purport ofthese things, he heard the receding tramp of heavy feet echoing far downthe street. He ran out into the darkness again, but he could see nothing. He had a mind to pull the bell-rope, and finally decided to follow thefootsteps. But, although he ran far, he never overtook them; and hisshouting was of no avail. The gorge seemed to extend an interminabledistance. It was as dark as earthly starlight throughout its length, whilethe ghastly green day lay along the upper edge of its precipices. Therewere none of the heads, now, below. They were all, it seemed, busilyoccupied along the upper slopes. Looking up, he saw them drifting hitherand thither, some hovering stationary, some flying swiftly through theair. It reminded him, he said, of "big snowflakes"; only these were blackand pale green. 

In pursuing the firm, undeviating footsteps that he never overtook, ingroping into new regions of this endless devil's dyke, in clambering upand down the pitiless heights, in wandering about the summits, and inwatching the drifting faces, Plattner states that he spent the better partof seven or eight days. He did not keep count, he says. Though once ortwice he found eyes watching him, he had word with no living soul. Heslept among the rocks on the hillside. In the gorge things earthly wereinvisible, because, from the earthly standpoint, it was far underground. On the altitudes, so soon as the earthly day began, the world becamevisible to him. He found himself sometimes stumbling over the dark greenrocks, or arresting himself on a precipitous brink, while all about himthe green branches of the Sussexville lanes were swaying; or, again, heseemed to be walking through the Sussexville streets, or watching unseenthe private business of some household. And then it was he discovered, that to almost every human being in our world there pertained some ofthese drifting heads; that everyone in the world is watched intermittentlyby these helpless disembodiments. 

What are they--these Watchers of the Living? Plattner never learned. Buttwo, that presently found and followed him, were like his childhood'smemory of his father and mother. Now and then other faces turned theireyes upon him: eyes like those of dead people who had swayed him, orinjured him, or helped him in his youth and manhood. Whenever they lookedat him, Plattner was overcome with a strange sense of responsibility. Tohis mother he ventured to speak; but she made no answer. She looked sadly, steadfastly, and tenderly--a little reproachfully, too, it seemed--intohis eyes. 

He simply tells this story: he does not endeavour to explain. We are leftto surmise who these Watchers of the Living may be, or, if they are indeedthe Dead, why they should so closely and passionately watch a world theyhave left for ever. It may be--indeed to my mind it seems just--that, whenour life has closed, when evil or good is no longer a choice for us, wemay still have to witness the working out of the train of consequences wehave laid. If human souls continue after death, then surely humaninterests continue after death. But that is merely my own guess at themeaning of the things seen. Plattner offers no interpretation, for nonewas given him. It is well the reader should understand this clearly. Dayafter day, with his head reeling, he wandered about this strange lit worldoutside the world, weary and, towards the end, weak and hungry. By day--byour earthly day, that is--the ghostly vision of the old familiar sceneryof Sussexville, all about him, irked and worried him. He could not seewhere to put his feet, and ever and again with a chilly touch one of theseWatching Souls would come against his face. And after dark the multitudeof these Watchers about him, and their intent distress, confused his mindbeyond describing. A great longing to return to the earthly life that wasso near and yet so remote consumed him. The unearthliness of things abouthim produced a positively painful mental distress. He was worried beyonddescribing by his own particular followers. He would shout at them todesist from staring at him, scold at them, hurry away from them. They werealways mute and intent. Run as he might over the uneven ground, theyfollowed his destinies. 

On the ninth day, towards evening, Plattner heard the invisible footstepsapproaching, far away down the gorge. He was then wandering over the broadcrest of the same hill upon which he had fallen in his entry into thisstrange Other-World of his. He turned to hurry down into the gorge, feeling his way hastily, and was arrested by the sight of the thing thatwas happening in a room in a back street near the school. Both of thepeople in the room he knew by sight. The windows were open, the blinds up, and the setting sun shone clearly into it, so that it came out quitebrightly at first, a vivid oblong of room, lying like a magic-lanternpicture upon the black landscape and the livid green dawn. In addition tothe sunlight, a candle had just been lit in the room. 

On the bed lay a lank man, his ghastly white face terrible upon thetumbled pillow. His clenched hands were raised above his head. A littletable beside the bed carried a few medicine bottles, some toast and water, and an empty glass. Every now and then the lank man's lips fell apart, to indicate a word he could not articulate. But the woman did not noticethat he wanted anything, because she was busy turning out papers from anold-fashioned bureau in the opposite corner of the room. At first thepicture was very vivid indeed, but as the green dawn behind it grewbrighter and brighter, so it became fainter and more and more transparent. 

As the echoing footsteps paced nearer and nearer, those footsteps thatsound so loud in that Other-World and come so silently in this, Plattnerperceived about him a great multitude of dim faces gathering together outof the darkness and watching the two people in the room. Never before hadhe seen so many of the Watchers of the Living. A multitude had eyes onlyfor the sufferer in the room, another multitude, in infinite anguish, watched the woman as she hunted with greedy eyes for something she couldnot find. They crowded about Plattner, they came across his sight andbuffeted his face, the noise of their unavailing regrets was all abouthim. He saw clearly only now and then. At other times the picture quivereddimly, through the veil of green reflections upon their movements. In theroom it must have been very still, and Plattner says the candle flamestreamed up into a perfectly vertical line of smoke, but in his ears eachfootfall and its echoes beat like a clap of thunder. And the faces!Two, more particularly near the woman's: one a woman's also, white andclear-featured, a face which might have once been cold and hard, but whichwas now softened by the touch of a wisdom strange to earth. The othermight have been the woman's father. Both were evidently absorbed in thecontemplation of some act of hateful meanness, so it seemed, which theycould no longer guard against and prevent. Behind were others, teachers, it may be, who had taught ill, friends whose influence had failed. Andover the man, too--a multitude, but none that seemed to be parents orteachers! Faces that might once have been coarse, now purged to strengthby sorrow! And in the forefront one face, a girlish one, neither angry norremorseful, but merely patient and weary, and, as it seemed to Plattner, waiting for relief. His powers of description fail him at the memory ofthis multitude of ghastly countenances. They gathered on the stroke of thebell. He saw them all in the space of a second. It would seem that he wasso worked on by his excitement that, quite involuntarily, his restlessfingers took the bottle of green powder out of his pocket and held itbefore him. But he does not remember that. 

Abruptly the footsteps ceased. He waited for the next, and there wassilence, and then suddenly, cutting through the unexpected stillness likea keen, thin blade, came the first stroke of the bell. At that themultitudinous faces swayed to and fro, and a louder crying began all abouthim. The woman did not hear; she was burning something now in the candleflame. At the second stroke everything grew dim, and a breath of wind, icycold, blew through the host of watchers. They swirled about him like aneddy of dead leaves in the spring, and at the third stroke something wasextended through them to the bed. You have heard of a beam of light. Thiswas like a beam of darkness, and looking again at it, Plattner saw that itwas a shadowy arm and hand. 

The green sun was now topping the black desolations of the horizon, andthe vision of the room was very faint. Plattner could see that the whiteof the bed struggled, and was convulsed; and that the woman looked roundover her shoulder at it, startled. 

The cloud of watchers lifted high like a puff of green dust before thewind, and swept swiftly downward towards the temple in the gorge. Thensuddenly Plattner understood the meaning of the shadowy black arm thatstretched across his shoulder and clutched its prey. He did not dare turnhis head to see the Shadow behind the arm. With a violent effort, andcovering his eyes, he set himself to run, made, perhaps, twenty strides, then slipped on a boulder, and fell. He fell forward on his hands; and thebottle smashed and exploded as he touched the ground. 

In another moment he found himself, stunned and bleeding, sitting face toface with Lidgett in the old walled garden behind the school. 

 * * * * *

There the story of Plattner's experiences ends. I have resisted, I believesuccessfully, the natural disposition of a writer of fiction to dress upincidents of this sort. I have told the thing as far as possible in theorder in which Plattner told it to me. I have carefully avoided anyattempt at style, effect, or construction. It would have been easy, forinstance, to have worked the scene of the death-bed into a kind of plot inwhich Plattner might have been involved. But, quite apart from theobjectionableness of falsifying a most extraordinary true story, any suchtrite devices would spoil, to my mind, the peculiar effect of this darkworld, with its livid green illumination and its drifting Watchers of theLiving, which, unseen and unapproachable to us, is yet lying all about us. 

It remains to add that a death did actually occur in Vincent Terrace, justbeyond the school garden, and, so far as can be proved, at the moment ofPlattner's return. Deceased was a rate-collector and insurance agent. Hiswidow, who was much younger than himself, married last month a Mr. Whymper, a veterinary surgeon of Allbeeding. As the portion of this storygiven here has in various forms circulated orally in Sussexville, she hasconsented to my use of her name, on condition that I make it distinctlyknown that she emphatically contradicts every detail of Plattner's accountof her husband's last moments. She burnt no will, she says, althoughPlattner never accused her of doing so; her husband made but one will, andthat just after their marriage. Certainly, from a man who had never seenit, Plattner's account of the furniture of the room was curiouslyaccurate. 

One other thing, even at the risk of an irksome repetition, I must insistupon, lest I seem to favour the credulous, superstitious view. Plattner'sabsence from the world for nine days is, I think, proved. But that doesnot prove his story. It is quite conceivable that even outside spacehallucinations may be possible. That, at least, the reader must beardistinctly in mind. 

 XVI. 

 THE RED ROOM. 

"I can assure you, " said I, "that it will take a very tangible ghost tofrighten me. " And I stood up before the fire with my glass in my hand. 

"It is your own choosing, " said the man with the withered arm, and glancedat me askance. 

"Eight-and-twenty years, " said I, "I have lived, and never a ghost have Iseen as yet. "

The old woman sat staring hard into the fire, her pale eyes wide open. "Ay, " she broke in; "and eight-and-twenty years you have lived and neverseen the likes of this house, I reckon. There's a many things to see, whenone's still but eight-and-twenty. " She swayed her head slowly from side toside. "A many things to see and sorrow for. "

I half suspected the old people were trying to enhance the spiritualterrors of their house by their droning insistence. I put down my emptyglass on the table and looked about the room, and caught a glimpse ofmyself, abbreviated and broadened to an impossible sturdiness, in thequeer old mirror at the end of the room. "Well, " I said, "if I seeanything to-night, I shall be so much the wiser. For I come to thebusiness with an open mind. "

"It's your own choosing, " said the man with the withered arm once more. 

I heard the sound of a stick and a shambling step on the flags in thepassage outside, and the door creaked on its hinges as a second old manentered, more bent, more wrinkled, more aged even than the first. Hesupported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decayingyellow teeth. He made straight for an arm-chair on the opposite side ofthe table, sat down clumsily, and began to cough. The man with thewithered arm gave this new-comer a short glance of positive dislike; theold woman took no notice of his arrival, but remained with her eyes fixedsteadily on the fire. 

"I said--it's your own choosing, " said the man with the withered arm, whenthe coughing had ceased for a while. 

"It's my own choosing, " I answered. 

The man with the shade became aware of my presence for the first time, andthrew his head back for a moment and sideways, to see me. I caught amomentary glimpse of his eyes, small and bright and inflamed. Then hebegan to cough and splutter again. 

"Why don't you drink?" said the man with the withered arm, pushing thebeer towards him. The man with the shade poured out a glassful with ashaky hand that splashed half as much again on the deal table. A monstrousshadow of him crouched upon the wall and mocked his action as he pouredand drank. I must confess I had scarce expected these grotesquecustodians. There is to my mind something inhuman in senility, somethingcrouching and atavistic; the human qualities seem to drop from old peopleinsensibly day by day. The three of them made me feel uncomfortable, withtheir gaunt silences, their bent carriage, their evident unfriendliness tome and to one another. 

"If, " said I, "you will show me to this haunted room of yours, I will makemyself comfortable there. "

The old man with the cough jerked his head back so suddenly that itstartled me, and shot another glance of his red eyes at me from under theshade; but no one answered me. I waited a minute, glancing from one to theother. 

"If, " I said a little louder, "if you will show me to this haunted room ofyours, I will relieve you from the task of entertaining me. "

"There's a candle on the slab outside the door, " said the man with thewithered arm, looking at my feet as he addressed me. "But if you go to thered room to-night----"

("This night of all nights!" said the old woman. )

"You go alone. "

"Very well, " I answered. "And which way do I go?"

"You go along the passage for a bit, " said he, "until you come to a door, and through that is a spiral staircase, and half-way up that is a landingand another door covered with baize. Go through that and down the longcorridor to the end, and the red room is on your left up the steps. "

"Have I got that right?" I said, and repeated his directions. He correctedme in one particular. 

"And are you really going?" said the man with the shade, looking at meagain for the third time, with that queer, unnatural tilting of the face. 

("This night of all nights!" said the old woman. )

"It is what I came for, " I said, and moved towards the door. As I did so, the old man with the shade rose and staggered round the table, so as to becloser to the others and to the fire. At the door I turned and looked atthem, and saw they were all close together, dark against the firelight, staring at me over their shoulders, with an intent expression on theirancient faces. 

"Good-night, " I said, setting the door open. 

"It's your own choosing, " said the man with the withered arm. 

I left the door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then Ishut them in and walked down the chilly, echoing passage. 

I must confess that the oddness of these three old pensioners in whosecharge her ladyship had left the castle, and the deep-toned, old-fashionedfurniture of the housekeeper's room in which they foregathered, affectedme in spite of my efforts to keep myself at a matter-of-fact phase. Theyseemed to belong to another age, an older age, an age when thingsspiritual were different from this of ours, less certain; an age whenomens and witches were credible, and ghosts beyond denying. Their veryexistence was spectral; the cut of their clothing, fashions born in deadbrains. The ornaments and conveniences of the room about them wereghostly--the thoughts of vanished men, which still haunted rather thanparticipated in the world of to-day. But with an effort I sent suchthoughts to the right-about. The long, draughty subterranean passage waschilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower andquiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadowcame sweeping up after me, and one fled before me into the darknessoverhead. I came to the landing and stopped there for a moment, listeningto a rustling that I fancied I heard; then, satisfied of the absolutesilence, I pushed open the baize-covered door and stood in the corridor. 

The effect was scarcely what I expected, for the moonlight, coming in bythe great window on the grand staircase, picked out everything in vividblack shadow or silvery illumination. Everything was in its place: thehouse might have been deserted on the yesterday instead of eighteen monthsago. There were candles in the sockets of the sconces, and whatever dusthad gathered on the carpets or upon the polished flooring was distributedso evenly as to be invisible in the moonlight. I was about to advance, andstopped abruptly. A bronze group stood upon the landing, hidden from me bythe corner of the wall, but its shadow fell with marvellous distinctnessupon the white panelling, and gave me the impression of someone crouchingto waylay me. I stood rigid for half a minute perhaps. Then, with my handin the pocket that held my revolver, I advanced, only to discover aGanymede and Eagle glistening in the moonlight. That incident for a timerestored my nerve, and a porcelain Chinaman on a buhl table, whose headrocked silently as I passed him, scarcely startled me. 

The door to the red room and the steps up to it were in a shadowy corner. I moved my candle from side to side, in order to see clearly the nature ofthe recess in which I stood before opening the door. Here it was, thoughtI, that my predecessor was found, and the memory of that story gave me asudden twinge of apprehension. I glanced over my shoulder at the Ganymedein the moonlight, and opened the door of the red room rather hastily, withmy face half turned to the pallid silence of the landing. 

I entered, closed the door behind me at once, turned the key I found inthe lock within, and stood with the candle held aloft, surveying the sceneof my vigil, the great red room of Lorraine Castle, in which the youngduke had died. Or, rather, in which he had begun his dying, for he hadopened the door and fallen headlong down the steps I had just ascended. That had been the end of his vigil, of his gallant attempt to conquer theghostly tradition of the place, and never, I thought, had apoplexy betterserved the ends of superstition. And there were other and older storiesthat clung to the room, back to the half-credible beginning of it all, thetale of a timid wife and the tragic end that came to her husband's jest offrightening her. And looking around that large sombre room, with itsshadowy window bays, its recesses and alcoves, one could well understandthe legends that had sprouted in its black corners, its germinatingdarkness. My candle was a little tongue of light in its vastness, thatfailed to pierce the opposite end of the room, and left an ocean ofmystery and suggestion beyond its island of light. 

I resolved to make a systematic examination of the place at once, anddispel the fanciful suggestions of its obscurity before they obtained ahold upon me. After satisfying myself of the fastening of the door, Ibegan to walk about the room, peering round each article of furniture, tucking up the valances of the bed, and opening its curtains wide. Ipulled up the blinds and examined the fastenings of the several windowsbefore closing the shutters, leant forward and looked up the blacknessof the wide chimney, and tapped the dark oak panelling for any secretopening. There were two big mirrors in the room, each with a pair ofsconces bearing candles, and on the mantelshelf, too, were more candles inchina candlesticks. All these I lit one after the other. The fire waslaid, an unexpected consideration from the old housekeeper, --and I lit it, to keep down any disposition to shiver, and when it was burning well, Istood round with my back to it and regarded the room again. I had pulledup a chintz-covered arm-chair and a table, to form a kind of barricadebefore me, and on this lay my revolver ready to hand. My preciseexamination had done me good, but I still found the remoter darkness ofthe place, and its perfect stillness, too stimulating for the imagination. The echoing of the stir and crackling of the fire was no sort of comfortto me. The shadow in the alcove at the end in particular, had thatundefinable quality of a presence, that odd suggestion of a lurking, living thing, that comes so easily in silence and solitude. At last, toreassure myself, I walked with a candle into it, and satisfied myself thatthere was nothing tangible there. I stood that candle upon the floor ofthe alcove, and left it in that position. 

By this time I was in a state of considerable nervous tension, although tomy reason there was no adequate cause for the condition. My mind, however, was perfectly clear. I postulated quite unreservedly that nothingsupernatural could happen, and to pass the time I began to string somerhymes together, Ingoldsby fashion, of the original legend of the place. Afew I spoke aloud, but the echoes were not pleasant. For the same reason Ialso abandoned, after a time, a conversation with myself upon theimpossibility of ghosts and haunting. My mind reverted to the three oldand distorted people downstairs, and I tried to keep it upon that topic. The sombre reds and blacks of the room troubled, me; even with sevencandles the place was merely dim. The one in the alcove flared in adraught, and the fire-flickering kept the shadows and penumbra perpetuallyshifting and stirring. Casting about for a remedy, I recalled the candlesI had seen in the passage, and, with a slight effort, walked out into themoonlight, carrying a candle and leaving the door open, and presentlyreturned with as many as ten. These I put in various knick-knacks of chinawith which the room was sparsely adorned, lit and placed where the shadowshad lain deepest, some on the floor, some in the window recesses, until atlast my seventeen candles were so arranged that not an inch of the roombut had the direct light of at least one of them. It occurred to me thatwhen the ghost came, I could warn him not to trip over them. The room wasnow quite brightly illuminated. There was something very cheery andreassuring in these little streaming flames, and snuffing them gave me anoccupation, and afforded a helpful sense of the passage of time. Even withthat, however, the brooding expectation of the vigil weighed heavily uponme. It was after midnight that the candle in the alcove suddenly went out, and the black shadow sprang back to its place there. I did not see thecandle go out; I simply turned and saw that the darkness was there, as onemight start and see the unexpected presence of a stranger. "By Jove!" saidI aloud; "that draught's a strong one!" and, taking the matches from thetable, I walked across the room in a leisurely manner, to relight thecorner again. My first match would not strike, and as I succeeded with thesecond, something seemed to blink on the wall before me. I turned my headinvoluntarily, and saw that the two candles on the little table by thefireplace were extinguished. I rose at once to my feet. 

"Odd!" I said. "Did I do that myself in a flash of absent-mindedness?"

I walked back, relit one, and as I did so, I saw the candle in the rightsconce of one of the mirrors wink and go right out, and almost immediatelyits companion followed it. There was no mistake about it. The flamevanished, as if the wicks had been suddenly nipped between a finger and athumb, leaving the wick neither glowing nor smoking, but black. While Istood gaping, the candle at the foot of the bed went out, and the shadowsseemed to take another step towards me. 

"This won't do!" said I, and first one and then another candle on themantelshelf followed. 

"What's up?" I cried, with a queer high note getting into my voicesomehow. At that the candle on the wardrobe went out, and the one I hadrelit in the alcove followed. 

"Steady on!" I said. "These candles are wanted, " speaking with ahalf-hysterical facetiousness, and scratching away at a match the whilefor the mantel candlesticks. My hands trembled so much that twice I missedthe rough paper of the matchbox. As the mantel emerged from darkness again, two candles in the remoter end of the window were eclipsed. But with thesame match I also relit the larger mirror candles, and those on the floornear the doorway, so that for the moment I seemed to gain on theextinctions. But then in a volley there vanished four lights at once indifferent corners of the room, and I struck another match in quiveringhaste, and stood hesitating whither to take it. 

As I stood undecided, an invisible hand seemed to sweep out the twocandles on the table. With a cry of terror, I dashed at the alcove, theninto the corner, and then into the window, relighting three, as two morevanished by the fireplace; then, perceiving a better way, I dropped thematches on the iron-bound deed-box in the corner, and caught up thebedroom candlestick. With this I avoided the delay of striking matches;but for all that the steady process of extinction went on, and the shadowsI feared and fought against returned, and crept in upon me, first astep gained on this side of me and then on that. It was like a raggedstorm-cloud sweeping out the stars. Now and then one returned for aminute, and was lost again. I was now almost frantic with the horror ofthe coming darkness, and my self-possession deserted me. I leaped pantingand dishevelled from candle to candle, in a vain struggle against thatremorseless advance. 

I bruised myself on the thigh against the table, I sent a chair headlong, I stumbled and fell and whisked the cloth from the table in my fall. Mycandle rolled away from me, and I snatched another as I rose. Abruptlythis was blown out, as I swung it off the table by the wind of my suddenmovement, and immediately the two remaining candles followed. But therewas light still in the room, a red light that staved off the shadows fromme. The fire! Of course I could still thrust my candle between the barsand relight it!

I turned to where the flames were still dancing between the glowing coals, and splashing red reflections upon the furniture, made two steps towardsthe grate, and incontinently the flames dwindled and vanished, the glowvanished, the reflections rushed together and vanished, and as I thrustthe candle between the bars darkness closed upon me like the shutting ofan eye, wrapped about me in a stifling embrace, sealed my vision, andcrushed the last vestiges of reason from my brain. The candle fell from myhand. I flung out my arms in a vain effort to thrust that ponderousblackness away from me, and, lifting up my voice, screamed with all mymight--once, twice, thrice. Then I think I must have staggered to my feet. I know I thought suddenly of the moonlit corridor, and, with my head bowedand my arms over my face, made a run for the door. 

But I had forgotten the exact position of the door, and struck myselfheavily against the corner of the bed. I staggered back, turned, and waseither struck or struck myself against some other bulky furniture. I havea vague memory of battering myself thus, to and fro in the darkness, of acramped struggle, and of my own wild crying as I darted to and fro, of aheavy blow at last upon my forehead, a horrible sensation of falling thatlasted an age, of my last frantic effort to keep my footing, and then Iremember no more. 

I opened my eyes in daylight. My head was roughly bandaged, and the manwith the withered arm was watching my face. I looked about me, trying toremember what had happened, and for a space I could not recollect. Irolled my eyes into the corner, and saw the old woman, no longerabstracted, pouring out some drops of medicine from a little blue phialinto a glass. "Where am I?" I asked; "I seem to remember you, and yet Icannot remember who you are. "

They told me then, and I heard of the haunted Red Room as one who hears atale. "We found you at dawn, " said he, "and there was blood on yourforehead and lips. "

It was very slowly I recovered my memory of my experience. "You believenow, " said the old man, "that the room is haunted?" He spoke no longer asone who greets an intruder, but as one who grieves for a broken friend. 

"Yes, " said I; "the room is haunted. "

"And you have seen it. And we, who have lived here all our lives, havenever set eyes upon it. Because we have never dared... Tell us, is ittruly the old earl who----"

"No, " said I; "it is not. "

"I told you so, " said the old lady, with the glass in her hand. "It is hispoor young countess who was frightened----"

"It is not, " I said. "There is neither ghost of earl nor ghost of countessin that room, there is no ghost there at all; but worse, far worse----"

"Well?" they said. 

"The worst of all the things that haunt poor mortal man, " said I; "andthat is, in all its nakedness--Fear that will not have light nor sound, that will not bear with reason, that deafens and darkens and overwhelms. It followed me through the corridor, it fought against me in the room----"

I stopped abruptly. There was an interval of silence. My hand went up tomy bandages. 

Then the man with the shade sighed and spoke. "That is it, " said he. "Iknew that was it. A power of darkness. To put such a curse upon a woman!It lurks there always. You can feel it even in the daytime, even of abright summer's day, in the hangings, in the curtains, keeping behind youhowever you face about. In the dusk it creeps along the corridor andfollows you, so that you dare not turn. There is Fear in that room ofhers--black Fear, and there will be--so long as this house of sinendures. "

 XVII. 

 THE PURPLE PILEUS

Mr. Coombes was sick of life. He walked away from his unhappy home, and, sick not only of his own existence but of everybody else's, turned asidedown Gaswork Lane to avoid the town, and, crossing the wooden bridge thatgoes over the canal to Starling's Cottages, was presently alone in thedamp pine woods and out of sight and sound of human habitation. He wouldstand it no longer. He repeated aloud with blasphemies unusual to him thathe would stand it no longer. 

He was a pale-faced little man, with dark eyes and a fine and very blackmoustache. He had a very stiff, upright collar slightly frayed, that gavehim an illusory double chin, and his overcoat (albeit shabby) was trimmedwith astrachan. His gloves were a bright brown with black stripes over theknuckles, and split at the finger ends. His appearance, his wife had saidonce in the dear, dead days beyond recall--before he married her, thatis--was military. But now she called him--it seems a dreadful thing totell of between husband and wife, but she called him "a little grub. " Itwasn't the only thing she had called him, either. 

The row had arisen about that beastly Jennie again. Jennie was his wife'sfriend, and, by no invitation of Mr. Coombes, she came in every blessedSunday to dinner, and made a shindy all the afternoon. She was a big, noisy girl, with a taste for loud colours and a strident laugh; and thisSunday she had outdone all her previous intrusions by bringing in a fellowwith her, a chap as showy as herself. And Mr. Coombes, in a starchy, cleancollar and his Sunday frock-coat, had sat dumb and wrathful at his owntable, while his wife and her guests talked foolishly and undesirably, andlaughed aloud. Well, he stood that, and after dinner (which, "as usual, "was late), what must Miss Jennie do but go to the piano and play banjotunes, for all the world as if it were a week-day! Flesh and blood couldnot endure such goings on. They would hear next door, they would hear inthe road, it was a public announcement of their disrepute. He had tospeak. 

He had felt himself go pale, and a kind of rigour had affected hisrespiration as he delivered himself. He had been sitting on one of thechairs by the window--the new guest had taken possession of the arm-chair. He turned his head. "Sun Day!" he said over the collar, in the voice ofone who warns. "Sun Day!" What people call a "nasty" tone, it was. 

Jennie had kept on playing, but his wife, who was looking through somemusic that was piled on the top of the piano, had stared at him. "What'swrong now?" she said; "can't people enjoy themselves?"

"I don't mind rational 'njoyment, at all, " said little Coombes, "but Iain't a-going to have week-day tunes playing on a Sunday in this house. "

"What's wrong with my playing now?" said Jennie, stopping and twirlinground on the music-stool with a monstrous rustle of flounces. 

Coombes saw it was going to be a row, and opened too vigorously, as iscommon with your timid, nervous men all the world over. "Steady on withthat music-stool!" said he; "it ain't made for 'eavy-weights. "

"Never you mind about weights, " said Jennie, incensed. "What was yousaying behind my back about my playing?"

"Surely you don't 'old with not having a bit of music on a Sunday, Mr. Coombes?" said the new guest, leaning back in the arm-chair, blowing acloud of cigarette smoke and smiling in a kind of pitying way. Andsimultaneously his wife said something to Jennie about "Never mind 'im. You go on, Jinny. "

"I do, " said Mr. Coombes, addressing the new guest. 

"May I arst why?" said the new guest, evidently enjoying both hiscigarette and the prospect of an argument. He was, by-the-by, a lank youngman, very stylishly dressed in bright drab, with a white cravat and apearl and silver pin. It had been better taste to come in a black coat, Mr. Coombes thought. 

"Because, " began Mr. Coombes, "it don't suit me. I'm a business man. I'ave to study my connection. Rational 'njoyment--"

"His connection!" said Mrs. Coombes scornfully. "That's what he's alwaysa-saying. We got to do this, and we got to do that--"

"If you don't mean to study my connection, " said Mr. Coombes, "what didyou marry me for?"

"I wonder, " said Jennie, and turned back to the piano. 

"I never saw such a man as you, " said Mrs. Coombes. 

"You've altered all round since we were married. Before--"

Then Jennie began at the turn, turn, turn again. 

"Look here!" said Mr. Coombes, driven at last to revolt, standing up andraising his voice. "I tell you I won't have that. " The frock-coat heavedwith his indignation. 

"No vi'lence, now, " said the long young man in drab, sitting up. 

"Who the juice are you?" said Mr. Coombes fiercely. 

Whereupon they all began talking at once. The new guest said he wasJennie's "intended, " and meant to protect her, and Mr. Coombes said he waswelcome to do so anywhere but in his (Mr. Coombes') house; and Mrs. Coombes said he ought to be ashamed of insulting his guests, and (as Ihave already mentioned) that he was getting a regular little grub; and theend was, that Mr. Coombes ordered his visitors out of the house, and theywouldn't go, and so he said he would go himself. With his face burning andtears of excitement in his eyes, he went into the passage, and as hestruggled with his overcoat--his frock-coat sleeves got concertinaed uphis arm--and gave a brush at his silk hat, Jennie began again at thepiano, and strummed him insultingly out of the house. Turn, turn, turn. Heslammed the shop door so that the house quivered. That, briefly, was theimmediate making of his mood. You will perhaps begin to understand hisdisgust with existence. 

As he walked along the muddy path under the firs, --it was late October, and the ditches and heaps of fir needles were gorgeous with clumps offungi, --he recapitulated the melancholy history of his marriage. It wasbrief and commonplace enough. He now perceived with sufficient clearnessthat his wife had married him out of a natural curiosity and in order toescape from her worrying, laborious, and uncertain life in the workroom;and, like the majority of her class, she was far too stupid to realisethat it was her duty to co-operate with him in his business. She wasgreedy of enjoyment, loquacious, and socially-minded, and evidentlydisappointed to find the restraints of poverty still hanging about her. His worries exasperated her, and the slightest attempt to control herproceedings resulted in a charge of "grumbling. " Why couldn't he be nice--as he used to be? And Coombes was such a harmless little man, too, nourished mentally on _Self-Help_, and with a meagre ambition ofself-denial and competition, that was to end in a "sufficiency. " ThenJennie came in as a female Mephistopheles, a gabbling chronicle of"fellers, " and was always wanting his wife to go to theatres, and "allthat. " And in addition were aunts of his wife, and cousins (male andfemale) to eat up capital, insult him personally, upset businessarrangements, annoy good customers, and generally blight his life. It wasnot the first occasion by many that Mr. Coombes had fled his home in wrathand indignation, and something like fear, vowing furiously and even aloudthat he wouldn't stand it, and so frothing away his energy along the lineof least resistance. But never before had he been quite so sick of life ason this particular Sunday afternoon. The Sunday dinner may have had itsshare in his despair--and the greyness of the sky. Perhaps, too, he wasbeginning to realise his unendurable frustration as a business man as theconsequence of his marriage. Presently bankruptcy, and after that----Perhaps she might have reason to repent when it was too late. And destiny, as I have already intimated, had planted the path through the wood withevil-smelling fungi, thickly and variously planted it, not only on theright side, but on the left. 

A small shopman is in such a melancholy position, if his wife turns out adisloyal partner. His capital is all tied up in his business, and to leaveher means to join the unemployed in some strange part of the earth. Theluxuries of divorce are beyond him altogether. So that the good oldtradition of marriage for better or worse holds inexorably for him, andthings work up to tragic culminations. Bricklayers kick their wives todeath, and dukes betray theirs; but it is among the small clerks andshopkeepers nowadays that it comes most often to a cutting of throats. Under the circumstances it is not so very remarkable--and you must take itas charitably as you can--that the mind of Mr. Coombes ran for a while onsome such glorious close to his disappointed hopes, and that he thought ofrazors, pistols, bread-knives, and touching letters to the coronerdenouncing his enemies by name, and praying piously for forgiveness. Aftera time his fierceness gave way to melancholia. He had been married in thisvery overcoat, in his first and only frock-coat that was buttoned upbeneath it. He began to recall their courting along this very walk, hisyears of penurious saving to get capital, and the bright hopefulness ofhis marrying days. For it all to work out like this! Was there nosympathetic ruler anywhere in the world? He reverted to death as a topic. 

He thought of the canal he had just crossed, and doubted whether heshouldn't stand with his head out, even in the middle, and it was whiledrowning was in his mind that the purple pileus caught his eye. He lookedat it mechanically for a moment, and stopped and stooped towards it topick it up, under the impression that it was some such small leatherobject as a purse. Then he saw that it was the purple top of a fungus, apeculiarly poisonous-looking purple: slimy, shiny, and emitting a sourodour. He hesitated with his hand an inch or so from it, and the thoughtof poison crossed his mind. With that he picked the thing, and stood upagain with it in his hand. 

The odour was certainly strong--acrid, but by no means disgusting. Hebroke off a piece, and the fresh surface was a creamy white, that changedlike magic in the space of ten seconds to a yellowish-green colour. It waseven an inviting-looking change. He broke off two other pieces to see itrepeated. They were wonderful things these fungi, thought Mr. Coombes, andall of them the deadliest poisons, as his father had often told him. Deadly poisons!

There is no time like the present for a rash resolve. Why not here andnow? thought Mr. Coombes. He tasted a little piece, a very little pieceindeed--a mere crumb. It was so pungent that he almost spat it out again, then merely hot and full-flavoured: a kind of German mustard with a touchof horse-radish and--well, mushroom. He swallowed it in the excitement ofthe moment. Did he like it or did he not? His mind was curiously careless. He would try another bit. It really wasn't bad--it was good. He forgot histroubles in the interest of the immediate moment. Playing with death itwas. He took another bite, and then deliberately finished a mouthful. Acurious, tingling sensation began in his finger-tips and toes. His pulsebegan to move faster. The blood in his ears sounded like a mill-race. "Trybi' more, " said Mr. Coombes. He turned and looked about him, and found hisfeet unsteady. He saw, and struggled towards, a little patch of purple adozen yards away. "Jol' goo' stuff, " said Mr. Coombes. "E--lomore ye'. " Hepitched forward and fell on his face, his hands outstretched towards thecluster of pilei. But he did not eat any more of them. He forgotforthwith. 

He rolled over and sat up with a look of astonishment on his face. Hiscarefully brushed silk hat had rolled away towards the ditch. He pressedhis hand to his brow. Something had happened, but he could not rightlydetermine what it was. Anyhow, he was no longer dull--he felt bright, cheerful. And his throat was afire. He laughed in the sudden gaiety of hisheart. Had he been dull? He did not know; but at any rate he would be dullno longer. He got up and stood unsteadily, regarding the universe with anagreeable smile. He began to remember. He could not remember very well, because of a steam roundabout that was beginning in his head. And he knewhe had been disagreeable at home, just because they wanted to be happy. They were quite right; life should be as gay as possible. He would go homeand make it up, and reassure them. And why not take some of thisdelightful toadstool with him, for them to eat? A hatful, no less. Some ofthose red ones with white spots as well, and a few yellow. He had been adull dog, an enemy to merriment; he would make up for it. It would be gayto turn his coat-sleeves inside out, and stick some yellow gorse into hiswaistcoat pockets. Then home--singing---for a jolly evening. 

After the departure of Mr. Coombes, Jennie discontinued playing, andturned round on the music-stool again. "What a fuss about nothing!" saidJennie. 

"You see, Mr. Clarence, what I've got to put up with, " said Mrs. Coombes. 

"He is a bit hasty, " said Mr. Clarence judicially. 

"He ain't got the slightest sense of our position, " said Mrs. Coombes;"that's what I complain of. He cares for nothing but his old shop; and ifI have a bit of company, or buy anything to keep myself decent, or get anylittle thing I want out of the housekeeping money, there's disagreeables. 'Economy' he says; 'struggle for life, ' and all that. He lies awake ofnights about it, worrying how he can screw me out of a shilling. He wantedus to eat Dorset butter once. If once I was to give in to him--there!"

"Of course, " said Jennie. 

"If a man values a woman, " said Mr. Clarence, lounging back in thearm-chair, "he must be prepared to make sacrifices for her. For my ownpart, " said Mr. Clarence, with his eye on Jennie, "I shouldn't think ofmarrying till I was in a position to do the thing in style. It's downrightselfishness. A man ought to go through the rough-and-tumble by himself, and not drag her--"

"I don't agree altogether with that, " said Jennie. "I don't see why a manshouldn't have a woman's help, provided he doesn't treat her meanly, youknow. It's meanness--"

"You wouldn't believe, " said Mrs. Coombes. "But I was a fool to 'ave 'im. I might 'ave known. If it 'adn't been for my father, we shouldn't 'ave 'adnot a carriage to our wedding. "

"Lord! he didn't stick out at that?" said Mr. Clarence, quite shocked. 

"Said he wanted the money for his stock, or some such rubbish. Why, hewouldn't have a woman in to help me once a week if it wasn't for mystanding out plucky. And the fusses he makes about money--comes to me, well, pretty near crying, with sheets of paper and figgers. 'If only wecan tide over this year, ' he says, 'the business is bound to go. ' 'If onlywe can tide over this year, ' I says; 'then it'll be, if only we can tideover next year. I know you, ' I says. 'And you don't catch me screwingmyself lean and ugly. Why didn't you marry a slavey?' I says, 'if youwanted one--instead of a respectable girl, ' I says. "

So Mrs. Coombes. But we will not follow this unedifying conversationfurther. Suffice it that Mr. Coombes was very satisfactorily disposed of, and they had a snug little time round the fire. Then Mrs. Coombes went toget the tea, and Jennie sat coquettishly on the arm of Mr. Clarence'schair until the tea-things clattered outside. "What was that I heard?"asked Mrs. Coombes playfully, as she entered, and there was badinage aboutkissing. They were just sitting down to the little circular table when thefirst intimation of Mr. Coombes' return was heard. 

This was a fumbling at the latch of the front door. 

"'Ere's my lord, " said Mrs. Coombes. "Went out like a lion and comes backlike a lamb, I'll lay. "

Something fell over in the shop: a chair, it sounded like. Then there wasa sound as of some complicated step exercise in the passage. Then the dooropened and Coombes appeared. But it was Coombes transfigured. Theimmaculate collar had been torn carelessly from his throat. Hiscarefully-brushed silk hat, half-full of a crush of fungi, was under onearm; his coat was inside out, and his waistcoat adorned with bunches ofyellow-blossomed furze. These little eccentricities of Sunday costume, however, were quite overshadowed by the change in his face; it was lividwhite, his eyes were unnaturally large and bright, and his pale blue lipswere drawn back in a cheerless grin. "Merry!" he said. He had stoppeddancing to open the door. "Rational 'njoyment. Dance. " He made threefantastic steps into the room, and stood bowing. 

"Jim!" shrieked Mrs. Coombes, and Mr. Clarence sat petrified, with adropping lower jaw. 

"Tea, " said Mr. Coombes. "Jol' thing, tea. Tose-stools, too. Brosher. "

"He's drunk, " said Jennie in a weak voice. Never before had she seen thisintense pallor in a drunken man, or such shining, dilated eyes. 

Mr. Coombes held out a handful of scarlet agaric to Mr. Clarence. "Jo'stuff, " said he; "ta' some. "

At that moment he was genial. Then at the sight of their startled faces hechanged, with the swift transition of insanity, into overbearing fury. Andit seemed as if he had suddenly recalled the quarrel of his departure. Insuch a huge voice as Mrs. Coombes had never heard before, he shouted, "Myhouse. I'm master 'ere. Eat what I give yer!" He bawled this, as itseemed, without an effort, without a violent gesture, standing there asmotionless as one who whispers, holding out a handful of fungus. 

Clarence approved himself a coward. He could not meet the mad fury inCoombes' eyes; he rose to his feet, pushing back his chair, and turned, stooping. At that Coombes rushed at him. Jennie saw her opportunity, and, with the ghost of a shriek, made for the door. 

Mrs. Coombes followed her. Clarence tried to dodge. Over went thetea-table with a smash as Coombes clutched him by the collar and tried tothrust the fungus into his mouth. Clarence was content to leave his collarbehind him, and shot out into the passage with red patches of fly agaricstill adherent to his face. "Shut 'im in!" cried Mrs. Coombes, and wouldhave closed the door, but her supports deserted her; Jennie saw the shopdoor open, and vanished thereby, locking it behind her, while Clarencewent on hastily into the kitchen. Mr. Coombes came heavily against thedoor, and Mrs. Coombes, finding the key was inside, fled upstairs andlocked herself in the spare bedroom. 

So the new convert to _joie de vivre_ emerged upon the passage, hisdecorations a little scattered, but that respectable hatful of fungi stillunder his arm. He hesitated at the three ways, and decided on the kitchen. Whereupon Clarence, who was fumbling with the key, gave up the attempt toimprison his host, and fled into the scullery, only to be captured beforehe could open the door into the yard. Mr. Clarence is singularly reticentof the details of what occurred. It seems that Mr. Coombes' transitoryirritation had vanished again, and he was once more a genial playfellow. And as there were knives and meat choppers about, Clarence very generouslyresolved to humour him and so avoid anything tragic. It is beyond disputethat Mr. Coombes played with Mr. Clarence to his heart's content; theycould not have been more playful and familiar if they had known each otherfor years. He insisted gaily on Clarence trying the fungi, and, after afriendly tussle, was smitten with remorse at the mess he was making of hisguest's face. It also appears that Clarence was dragged under the sink andhis face scrubbed with the blacking brush--he being still resolved tohumour the lunatic at any cost--and that finally, in a somewhatdishevelled, chipped, and discoloured condition, he was assisted to hiscoat and shown out by the back door, the shopway being barred by Jennie. Mr. Coombes' wandering thoughts then turned to Jennie. Jennie had beenunable to unfasten the shop door, but she shot the bolts against Mr. Coombes' latch-key, and remained in possession of the shop for the rest ofthe evening. 

It would appear that Mr. Coombes then returned to the kitchen, still inpursuit of gaiety, and, albeit a strict Good Templar, drank (or spilt downthe front of the first and only frock-coat) no less than five bottles ofthe stout Mrs. Coombes insisted upon having for her health's sake. He madecheerful noises by breaking off the necks of the bottles with several ofhis wife's wedding-present dinner-plates, and during the earlier part ofthis great drunk he sang divers merry ballads. He cut his finger ratherbadly with one of the bottles--the only bloodshed in this story--and whatwith that, and the systematic convulsion of his inexperienced physiologyby the liquorish brand of Mrs. Coombes' stout, it may be the evil of thefungus poison was somehow allayed. But we prefer to draw a veil over theconcluding incidents of this Sunday afternoon. They ended in the coalcellar, in a deep and healing sleep. 

An interval of five years elapsed. Again it was a Sunday afternoon inOctober, and again Mr. Coombes walked through the pine wood beyond thecanal. He was still the same dark-eyed, black-moustached little man thathe was at the outset of the story, but his double chin was now scarcely soillusory as it had been. His overcoat was new, with a velvet lapel, and astylish collar with turn-down corners, free of any coarse starchiness, hadreplaced the original all-round article. His hat was glossy, his glovesnewish--though one finger had split and been carefully mended. And acasual observer would have noticed about him a certain rectitude ofbearing, a certain erectness of head that marks the man who thinks well ofhimself. He was a master now, with three assistants. Beside him walked alarger sunburnt parody of himself, his brother Tom, just back fromAustralia. They were recapitulating their early struggles, and Mr. Coombeshad just been making a financial statement. 

"It's a very nice little business, Jim, " said brother Tom. "In these daysof competition you're jolly lucky to have worked it up so. And you'rejolly lucky, too, to have a wife who's willing to help like yours does. "

"Between ourselves, " said Mr. Coombes, "it wasn't always so. It wasn'talways like this. To begin with, the missus was a bit giddy. Girls arefunny creatures. "

"Dear me!"

"Yes. You'd hardly think it, but she was downright extravagant, and alwayshaving slaps at me. I was a bit too easy and loving, and all that, and shethought the whole blessed show was run for her. Turned the 'ouse into aregular caravansery, always having her relations and girls from businessin, and their chaps. Comic songs a' Sunday, it was getting to, and drivingtrade away. And she was making eyes at the chaps, too! I tell you, Tom, the place wasn't my own. "

"Shouldn't 'a' thought it. "

"It was so. Well--I reasoned with her. I said, 'I ain't a duke, to keep awife like a pet animal. I married you for 'elp and company. ' I said, 'Yougot to 'elp and pull the business through. ' She wouldn't 'ear of it. 'Verywell, ' I says?? 'I'm a mild man till I'm roused, ' I says, 'and it'sgetting to that. ' But she wouldn't 'ear of no warnings. "

"Well?"

"It's the way with women. She didn't think I 'ad it in me to be roused. Women of her sort (between ourselves, Tom) don't respect a man untilthey're a bit afraid of him. So I just broke out to show her. In comes agirl named Jennie, that used to work with her, and her chap. We 'ad a bitof a row, and I came out 'ere--it was just such another day as this--and Ithought it all out. Then I went back and pitched into them. "

"You did?"

"I did. I was mad, I can tell you. I wasn't going to 'it 'er if I could'elp it, so I went back and licked into this chap, just to show 'er what Icould do. 'E was a big chap, too. Well, I chucked him, and smashed thingsabout, and gave 'er a scaring, and she ran up and locked 'erself into thespare room. "

"Well?"

"That's all. I says to 'er the next morning, 'Now you know, ' I says, 'whatI'm like when I'm roused. ' And I didn't have to say anything more. "

"And you've been happy ever after, eh?"

"So to speak. There's nothing like putting your foot down with them. If it'adn't been for that afternoon I should 'a' been tramping the roads now, and she'd 'a' been grumbling at me, and all her family grumbling forbringing her to poverty--I know their little ways. But we're all rightnow. And it's a very decent little business, as you say. "

They proceeded on their way meditatively. "Women are funny creatures, "said Brother Tom. 

"They want a firm hand, " says Coombes. 

"What a lot of these funguses there are about here!" remarked Brother Tompresently. "I can't see what use they are in the world. "

Mr. Coombes looked. "I dessay they're sent for some wise purpose, " saidMr. Coombes. 

And that was as much thanks as the purple pileus ever got for maddeningthis absurd little man to the pitch of decisive action, and so alteringthe whole course of his life. 

 XVIII. 

 A SLIP UNDER THE MICROSCOPE. 

Outside the laboratory windows was a watery-grey fog, and within a closewarmth and the yellow light of the green-shaded gas lamps that stood twoto each table down its narrow length. On each table stood a couple ofglass jars containing the mangled vestiges of the crayfish, mussels, frogs, and guinea-pigs upon which the students had been working, and downthe side of the room, facing the windows, were shelves bearing bleacheddissections in spirits, surmounted by a row of beautifully executedanatomical drawings in white-wood frames and overhanging a row of cubicallockers. All the doors of the laboratory were panelled with blackboard, and on these were the half-erased diagrams of the previous day's work. Thelaboratory was empty, save for the demonstrator, who sat near thepreparation-room door, and silent, save for a low, continuous murmur andthe clicking of the rocker microtome at which he was working. Butscattered about the room were traces of numerous students: hand-bags, polished boxes of instruments, in one place a large drawing covered bynewspaper, and in another a prettily bound copy of _News fromNowhere_, a book oddly at variance with its surroundings. These thingshad been put down hastily as the students had arrived and hurried at onceto secure their seats in the adjacent lecture theatre. Deadened by theclosed door, the measured accents of the professor sounded as afeatureless muttering. 

Presently, faint through the closed windows came the sound of the Oratoryclock striking the hour of eleven. The clicking of the microtome ceased, and the demonstrator looked at his watch, rose, thrust his hands into hispockets, and walked slowly down the laboratory towards the lecture theatredoor. He stood listening for a moment, and then his eye fell on the littlevolume by William Morris. He picked it up, glanced at the title, smiled, opened it, looked at the name on the fly-leaf, ran the leaves through withhis hand, and put it down. Almost immediately the even murmur of thelecturer ceased, there was a sudden burst of pencils rattling on the desksin the lecture theatre, a stirring, a scraping of feet, and a number ofvoices speaking together. Then a firm footfall approached the door, whichbegan to open, and stood ajar, as some indistinctly heard questionarrested the new-comer. 

The demonstrator turned, walked slowly back past the microtome, and leftthe laboratory by the preparation-room door. As he did so, first one, andthen several students carrying notebooks entered the laboratory from thelecture theatre, and distributed themselves among the little tables, orstood in a group about the doorway. They were an exceptionallyheterogeneous assembly, for while Oxford and Cambridge still recoil fromthe blushing prospect of mixed classes, the College of Science anticipatedAmerica in the matter years ago--mixed socially, too, for the prestige ofthe College is high, and its scholarships, free of any age limit, dredgedeeper even than do those of the Scotch universities. The class numberedone-and-twenty, but some remained in the theatre questioning theprofessor, copying the black-board diagrams before they were washed off, or examining the special specimens he had produced to illustrate the day'steaching. Of the nine who had come into the laboratory three were girls, one of whom, a little fair woman, wearing spectacles and dressed ingreyish-green, was peering out of the window at the fog, while the othertwo, both wholesome-looking, plain-faced schoolgirls, unrolled and put onthe brown holland aprons they wore while dissecting. Of the men, two wentdown the laboratory to their places, one a pallid, dark-bearded man, whohad once been a tailor; the other a pleasant-featured, ruddy young man oftwenty, dressed in a well-fitting brown suit; young Wedderburn, the son ofWedderburn, the eye specialist. The others formed a little knot near thetheatre door. One of these, a dwarfed, spectacled figure, with ahunchback, sat on a bent wood stool; two others, one a short, darkyoungster, and the other a flaxen-haired, reddish-complexioned young man, stood leaning side by side against the slate sink, while the fourth stoodfacing them, and maintained the larger share of the conversation. 

This last person was named Hill. He was a sturdily built young fellow, ofthe same age as Wedderburn; he had a white face, dark grey eyes, hair ofan indeterminate colour, and prominent, irregular features. He talkedrather louder than was needful, and thrust his hands deeply into hispockets. His collar was frayed and blue with the starch of a carelesslaundress, his clothes were evidently ready-made, and there was a patch onthe side of his boot near the toe. And as he talked or listened to theothers, he glanced now and again towards the lecture theatre door. Theywere discussing the depressing peroration of the lecture they had justheard, the last lecture it was in the introductory course in zoology. "From ovum to ovum is the goal of the higher vertebrata, " the lecturer hadsaid in his melancholy tones, and so had neatly rounded off the sketchof comparative anatomy he had been developing. The spectacled hunchbackhad repeated it, with noisy appreciation, had tossed it towards thefair-haired student with an evident provocation, and had started one ofthese vague, rambling discussions on generalities, so unaccountably dearto the student mind all the world over. 

"That is our goal, perhaps--I admit it, as far as science goes, " said thefair-haired student, rising to the challenge. "But there are things abovescience. "

"Science, " said Hill confidently, "is systematic knowledge. Ideas thatdon't come into the system--must anyhow--be loose ideas. " He was not quitesure whether that was a clever saying or a fatuity until his hearers tookit seriously. 

"The thing I cannot understand, " said the hunchback, at large, "is whetherHill is a materialist or not. "

"There is one thing above matter, " said Hill promptly, feeling he had abetter thing this time; aware, too, of someone in the doorway behind him, and raising his voice a trifle for her benefit, "and that is, the delusionthat there is something above matter. "

"So we have your gospel at last, " said the fair student. "It's all adelusion, is it? All our aspirations to lead something more than dogs'lives, all our work for anything beyond ourselves. But see howinconsistent you are. Your socialism, for instance. Why do you troubleabout the interests of the race? Why do you concern yourself about thebeggar in the gutter? Why are you bothering yourself to lend that book "--he indicated William Morris by a movement of the head--"to everyone in thelab. ?"

"Girl, " said the hunchback indistinctly, and glanced guiltily over hisshoulder. 

The girl in brown, with the brown eyes, had come into the laboratory, andstood on the other side of the table behind him, with her rolled-up apronin one hand, looking over her shoulder, listening to the discussion. Shedid not notice the hunchback, because she was glancing from Hill to hisinterlocutor. Hill's consciousness of her presence betrayed itself to heronly in his studious ignorance of the fact; but she understood that, andit pleased her. "I see no reason, " said he, "why a man should live like abrute because he knows of nothing beyond matter, and does not expect toexist a hundred years hence. "

"Why shouldn't he?" said the fair-haired student. 

"Why _should_ he?" said Hill. 

"What inducement has he?"

"That's the way with all you religious people. It's all a business ofinducements. Cannot a man seek after righteousness for righteousness'sake?"

There was a pause. The fair man answered, with a kind of vocal padding, "But--you see--inducement--when I said inducement, " to gain time. And thenthe hunchback came to his rescue and inserted a question. He was aterrible person in the debating society with his questions, and theyinvariably took one form--a demand for a definition, "What's yourdefinition of righteousness?" said the hunchback at this stage. 

Hill experienced a sudden loss of complacency at this question, but evenas it was asked, relief came in the person of Brooks, the laboratoryattendant, who entered by the preparation-room door, carrying a number offreshly killed guinea-pigs by their hind legs. "This is the last batch ofmaterial this session, " said the youngster who had not previously spoken. Brooks advanced up the laboratory, smacking down a couple of guinea-pigsat each table. The rest of the class, scenting the prey from afar, camecrowding in by the lecture theatre door, and the discussion perishedabruptly as the students who were not already in their places hurried tothem to secure the choice of a specimen. There was a noise of keysrattling on split rings as lockers were opened and dissecting instrumentstaken out. Hill was already standing by his table, and his box of scalpelswas sticking out of his pocket. The girl in brown came a step towards him, and, leaning over his table, said softly, "Did you see that I returnedyour book, Mr. Hill?"

During the whole scene she and the book had been vividly present in hisconsciousness; but he made a clumsy pretence of looking at the book andseeing it for the first time. "Oh, yes, " he said, taking it up. "I see. Did you like it?"

"I want to ask you some questions about it--some time. "

"Certainly, " said Hill. "I shall be glad. " He stopped awkwardly. "Youliked it?" he said. 

"It's a wonderful book. Only some things I don't understand. "

Then suddenly the laboratory was hushed by a curious, braying noise. Itwas the demonstrator. He was at the blackboard ready to begin the day'sinstruction, and it was his custom to demand silence by a sound midwaybetween the "Er" of common intercourse and the blast of a trumpet. Thegirl in brown slipped back to her place: it was immediately in front ofHill's, and Hill, forgetting her forthwith, took a notebook out of thedrawer of his table, turned over its leaves hastily, drew a stumpy pencilfrom his pocket, and prepared to make a copious note of the comingdemonstration. For demonstrations and lectures are the sacred text of theCollege students. Books, saving only the Professor's own, you may--it iseven expedient to--ignore. 

Hill was the son of a Landport cobbler, and had been hooked by a chanceblue paper the authorities had thrown out to the Landport TechnicalCollege. He kept himself in London on his allowance of a guinea a week, and found that, with proper care, this also covered his clothingallowance, an occasional waterproof collar, that is; and ink and needlesand cotton, and such-like necessaries for a man about town. This was hisfirst year and his first session, but the brown old man in Landport hadalready got himself detested in many public-houses by boasting of his son, "the Professor. " Hill was a vigorous youngster, with a serene contempt forthe clergy of all denominations, and a fine ambition to reconstruct theworld. He regarded his scholarship as a brilliant opportunity. He hadbegun to read at seven, and had read steadily whatever came in his way, good or bad, since then. His worldly experience had been limited to theisland of Portsea, and acquired chiefly in the wholesale boot factory inwhich he had worked by day, after passing the seventh standard of theBoard school. He had a considerable gift of speech, as the CollegeDebating Society, which met amidst the crushing machines and mine modelsin the metallurgical theatre downstairs, already recognised--recognised bya violent battering of desks whenever he rose. And he was just at thatfine emotional age when life opens at the end of a narrow pass like abroad valley at one's feet, full of the promise of wonderful discoveriesand tremendous achievements. And his own limitations, save that he knewthat he knew neither Latin nor French, were all unknown to him. 

At first his interest had been divided pretty equally between hisbiological work at the College and social and theological theorising, anemployment which he took in deadly earnest. Of a night, when the bigmuseum library was not open, he would sit on the bed of his room inChelsea with his coat and a muffler on, and write out the lecture notesand revise his dissection memoranda, until Thorpe called him out by awhistle--the landlady objected to open the door to attic visitors--andthen the two would go prowling about the shadowy, shiny, gas-lit streets, talking, very much in the fashion of the sample just given, of the Godidea, and Righteousness, and Carlyle, and the Reorganisation of Society. And in the midst of it all, Hill, arguing not only for Thorpe, but for thecasual passer-by, would lose the thread of his argument glancing at somepretty painted face that looked meaningly at him as he passed. Science andRighteousness! But once or twice lately there had been signs that a thirdinterest was creeping into his life, and he had found his attentionwandering from the fate of the mesoblastic somites or the probable meaningof the blastopore, to the thought of the girl with the brown eyes who satat the table before him. 

She was a paying student; she descended inconceivable social altitudes tospeak to him. At the thought of the education she must have had, and theaccomplishments she must possess, the soul of Hill became abject withinhim. She had spoken to him first over a difficulty about the alisphenoidof a rabbit's skull, and he had found that, in biology at least, he had noreason for self-abasement. And from that, after the manner of young peoplestarting from any starting-point, they got to generalities, and while Hillattacked her upon the question of socialism--some instinct told him tospare her a direct assault upon her religion--she was gathering resolutionto undertake what she told herself was his aesthetic education. She was ayear or two older than he, though the thought never occurred to him. Theloan of _News from Nowhere_ was the beginning of a series of crossloans. Upon some absurd first principle of his, Hill had never "wastedtime" Upon poetry, and it seemed an appalling deficiency to her. One dayin the lunch hour, when she chanced upon him alone in the little museumwhere the skeletons were arranged, shamefully eating the bun thatconstituted his midday meal, she retreated, and returned to lend him, witha slightly furtive air, a volume of Browning. He stood sideways towardsher and took the book rather clumsily, because he was holding the bun inthe other hand. And in the retrospect his voice lacked the cheerfulclearness he could have wished. 

That occurred after the examination in comparative anatomy, on the daybefore the College turned out its students, and was carefully locked up bythe officials, for the Christmas holidays. The excitement of cramming forthe first trial of strength had for a little while dominated Hill, to theexclusion of his other interests. In the forecasts of the result in whicheveryone indulged he was surprised to find that no one regarded him as apossible competitor for the Harvey Commemoration Medal, of which this andthe two subsequent examinations disposed. It was about this time thatWedderburn, who so far had lived inconspicuously on the uttermost marginof Hill's perceptions, began to take on the appearance of an obstacle. Bya mutual agreement, the nocturnal prowlings with Thorpe ceased for thethree weeks before the examination, and his landlady pointed out that shereally could not supply so much lamp oil at the price. He walked to andfro from the College with little slips of mnemonics in his hand, lists ofcrayfish appendages, rabbits' skull-bones, and vertebrate nerves, forexample, and became a positive nuisance to foot passengers in the oppositedirection. 

But, by a natural reaction, Poetry and the girl with the brown eyes ruledthe Christmas holiday. The pending results of the examination became sucha secondary consideration that Hill marvelled at his father's excitement. Even had he wished it, there was no comparative anatomy to read inLandport, and he was too poor to buy books, but the stock of poets in thelibrary was extensive, and Hill's attack was magnificently sustained. Hesaturated himself with the fluent numbers of Longfellow and Tennyson, andfortified himself with Shakespeare; found a kindred soul in Pope, and amaster in Shelley, and heard and fled the siren voices of Eliza Cook andMrs. Hemans. But he read no more Browning, because he hoped for the loanof other volumes from Miss Haysman when he returned to London. 

He walked from his lodgings to the College with that volume of Browning inhis shiny black bag, and his mind teeming with the finest generalpropositions about poetry. Indeed, he framed first this little speech andthen that with which to grace the return. The morning was an exceptionallypleasant one for London; there was a clear, hard frost and undeniable bluein the sky, a thin haze softened every outline, and warm shafts ofsunlight struck between the house blocks and turned the sunny side of thestreet to amber and gold. In the hall of the College he pulled off hisglove and signed his name with fingers so stiff with cold that thecharacteristic dash under the signature he cultivated became a quiveringline. He imagined Miss Haysman about him everywhere. He turned at thestaircase, and there, below, he saw a crowd struggling at the foot of thenotice-board. This, possibly, was the biology list. He forgot Browning andMiss Haysman for the moment, and joined the scrimmage. And at last, withhis cheek flattened against the sleeve of the man on the step above him, he read the list--

CLASS IH. J. Somers WedderburnWilliam Hill

and thereafter followed a second class that is outside our presentsympathies. It was characteristic that he did not trouble to look forThorpe on the physics list, but backed out of the struggle at once, and ina curious emotional state between pride over common second-class humanityand acute disappointment at Wedderburn's success, went on his wayupstairs. At the top, as he was hanging up his coat in the passage, thezoological demonstrator, a young man from Oxford, who secretly regardedhim as a blatant "mugger" of the very worst type, offered his heartiestcongratulations. 

At the laboratory door Hill stopped for a second to get his breath, andthen entered. He looked straight up the laboratory and saw all five girlstudents grouped in their places, and Wedderburn, the once retiringWedderburn, leaning rather gracefully against the window, playing with theblind tassel and talking, apparently, to the five of them. Now, Hill couldtalk bravely enough and even overbearingly to one girl, and he could havemade a speech to a roomful of girls, but this business of standing at easeand appreciating, fencing, and returning quick remarks round a group was, he knew, altogether beyond him. Coming up the staircase his feelings forWedderburn had been generous, a certain admiration perhaps, a willingnessto shake his hand conspicuously and heartily as one who had fought but thefirst round. But before Christmas Wedderburn had never gone up to that endof the room to talk. In a flash Hill's mist of vague excitement condensedabruptly to a vivid dislike of Wedderburn. Possibly his expressionchanged. As he came up to his place, Wedderburn nodded carelessly to him, and the others glanced round. Miss Haysman looked at him and away again, the faintest touch of her eyes. "I can't agree with you, Mr. Wedderburn, "she said. 

"I must congratulate you on your first-class, Mr. Hill, " said thespectacled girl in green, turning round and beaming at him. 

"It's nothing, " said Hill, staring at Wedderburn and Miss Haysman talkingtogether, and eager to hear what they talked about. 

"We poor folks in the second class don't think so, " said the girl inspectacles. 

What was it Wedderburn was saying? Something about William Morris! Hilldid not answer the girl in spectacles, and the smile died out of his face. He could not hear, and failed to see how he could "cut in. " ConfoundWedderburn! He sat down, opened his bag, hesitated whether to return thevolume of Browning forthwith, in the sight of all, and instead drew outhis new notebooks for the short course in elementary botany that was nowbeginning, and which would terminate in February. As he did so, a fat, heavy man, with a white face and pale grey eyes--Bindon, the professor ofbotany, who came up from Kew for January and February--came in by thelecture theatre door, and passed, rubbing his hands together and smiling, in silent affability down the laboratory. 

 * * * * *

In the subsequent six weeks Hill experienced some very rapid and curiouslycomplex emotional developments. For the most part he had Wedderburn infocus--a fact that Miss Haysman never suspected. She told Hill (for in thecomparative privacy of the museum she talked a good deal to him ofsocialism and Browning and general propositions) that she had metWedderburn at the house of some people she knew, and "he's inherited hiscleverness; for his father, you know, is the great eye-specialist. "

"_My_ father is a cobbler, " said Hill, quite irrelevantly, andperceived the want of dignity even as he said it. But the gleam ofjealousy did not offend her. She conceived herself the fundamental sourceof it. He suffered bitterly from a sense of Wedderburn's unfairness, and arealisation of his own handicap. Here was this Wedderburn had picked up aprominent man for a father, and instead of his losing so many marks on thescore of that advantage, it was counted to him for righteousness! Andwhile Hill had to introduce himself and talk to Miss Haysman clumsily overmangled guinea-pigs in the laboratory, this Wedderburn, in some backstairsway, had access to her social altitudes, and could converse in a polishedargot that Hill understood perhaps, but felt incapable of speaking. Not, of course, that he wanted to. Then it seemed to Hill that for Wedderburnto come there day after day with cuffs unfrayed, neatly tailored, precisely barbered, quietly perfect, was in itself an ill-bred, sneeringsort of proceeding. Moreover, it was a stealthy thing for Wedderburn tobehave insignificantly for a space, to mock modesty, to lead Hill to fancythat he himself was beyond dispute the man of the year, and then suddenlyto dart in front of him, and incontinently to swell up in this fashion. Inaddition to these things, Wedderburn displayed an increasing dispositionto join in any conversational grouping that included Miss Haysman, andwould venture, and indeed seek occasion, to pass opinions derogatory tosocialism and atheism. He goaded Hill to incivilities by neat, shallow, and exceedingly effective personalities about the socialist leaders, until Hill hated Bernard Shaw's graceful egotisms, William Morris'slimited editions and luxurious wall-papers, and Walter Crane's charminglyabsurd ideal working men, about as much as he hated Wedderburn. Thedissertations in the laboratory, that had been his glory in the previousterm, became a danger, degenerated into inglorious tussels withWedderburn, and Hill kept to them only out of an obscure perception thathis honour was involved. In the debating society Hill knew quite clearlythat, to a thunderous accompaniment of banged desks, he could havepulverised Wedderburn. Only Wedderburn never attended the debating societyto be pulverised, because--nauseous affectation!--he "dined late. "

You must not imagine that these things presented themselves in quite sucha crude form to Hill's perception. Hill was a born generaliser. Wedderburnto him was not so much an individual obstacle as a type, the salient angleof a class. The economic theories that, after infinite ferment, had shapedthemselves in Hill's mind, became abruptly concrete at the contact. Theworld became full of easy-mannered, graceful, gracefully-dressed, conversationally dexterous, finally shallow Wedderburns, BishopsWedderburn, Wedderburn M. P. 's, Professors Wedderburn, Wedderburnlandlords, all with finger-bowl shibboleths and epigrammatic cities ofrefuge from a sturdy debater. And everyone ill-clothed or ill-dressed, from the cobbler to the cab-runner, was a man and a brother, afellow-sufferer, to Hill's imagination. So that he became, as it were, achampion of the fallen and oppressed, albeit to outward seeming only aself-assertive, ill-mannered young man, and an unsuccessful champion atthat. Again and again a skirmish over the afternoon tea that the girlstudents had inaugurated left Hill with flushed cheeks and a tatteredtemper, and the debating society noticed a new quality of sarcasticbitterness in his speeches. 

You will understand now how it was necessary, if only in the interests ofhumanity, that Hill should demolish Wedderburn in the forthcomingexamination and outshine him in the eyes of Miss Haysman; and you willperceive, too, how Miss Haysman fell into some common femininemisconceptions. The Hill-Wedderburn quarrel, for in his unostentatious wayWedderburn reciprocated Hill's ill-veiled rivalry, became a tribute to herindefinable charm; she was the Queen of Beauty in a tournament of scalpelsand stumpy pencils. To her confidential friend's secret annoyance, it eventroubled her conscience, for she was a good girl, and painfully aware, from Ruskin and contemporary fiction, how entirely men's activities aredetermined by women's attitudes. And if Hill never by any chance mentionedthe topic of love to her, she only credited him with the finer modesty forthat omission. So the time came on for the second examination, and Hill'sincreasing pallor confirmed the general rumour that he was working hard. In the aerated bread shop near South Kensington Station you would see him, breaking his bun and sipping his milk, with his eyes intent upon a paperof closely written notes. In his bedroom there were propositions aboutbuds and stems round his looking-glass, a diagram to catch his eye, ifsoap should chance to spare it, above his washing basin. He missed severalmeetings of the debating society, but he found the chance encounters withMiss Haysman in the spacious ways of the adjacent art museum, or in thelittle museum at the top of the College, or in the College corridors, morefrequent and very restful. In particular, they used to meet in a littlegallery full of wrought-iron chests and gates, near the art library, andthere Hill used to talk, under the gentle stimulus of her flatteringattention, of Browning and his personal ambitions. A characteristic shefound remarkable in him was his freedom from avarice. He contemplatedquite calmly the prospect of living all his life on an income below ahundred pounds a year. But he was determined to be famous, to make, recognisably in his own proper person, the world a better place to livein. He took Bradlaugh and John Burns for his leaders and models, poor, even impecunious, great men. But Miss Haysman thought that such lives weredeficient on the aesthetic side, by which, though she did not know it, shemeant good wall-paper and upholstery, pretty books, tasteful clothes, concerts, and meals nicely cooked and respectfully served. 

At last came the day of the second examination, and the professor ofbotany, a fussy, conscientious man, rearranged all the tables in a longnarrow laboratory to prevent copying, and put his demonstrator on a chairon a table (where he felt, he said, like a Hindoo god), to see all thecheating, and stuck a notice outside the door, "Door closed, " for noearthly reason that any human being could discover. And all the morningfrom ten till one the quill of Wedderburn shrieked defiance at Hill's, andthe quills of the others chased their leaders in a tireless pack, and soalso it was in the afternoon. Wedderburn was a little quieter than usual, and Hill's face was hot all day, and his overcoat bulged with textbooksand notebooks against the last moment's revision. And the next day, in themorning and in the afternoon, was the practical examination, when sectionshad to be cut and slides identified. In the morning Hill was depressedbecause he knew he had cut a thick section, and in the afternoon came themysterious slip. 

It was just the kind of thing that the botanical professor was alwaysdoing. Like the income tax, it offered a premium to the cheat. It was apreparation under the microscope, a little glass slip, held in its placeon the stage of the instrument by light steel clips, and the inscriptionset forth that the slip was not to be moved. Each student was to go inturn to it, sketch it, write in his book of answers what he considered itto be, and return to his place. Now, to move such a slip is a thing onecan do by a chance movement of the finger, and in a fraction of a second. The professor's reason for decreeing that the slip should not be moveddepended on the fact that the object he wanted identified wascharacteristic of a certain tree stem. In the position in which it wasplaced it was a difficult thing to recognise, but once the slip was movedso as to bring other parts of the preparation into view, its nature wasobvious enough. 

Hill came to this, flushed from a contest with staining re-agents, satdown on the little stool before the microscope, turned the mirror to getthe best light, and then, out of sheer habit, shifted the slips. At oncehe remembered the prohibition, and, with an almost continuous motion ofhis hands, moved it back, and sat paralysed with astonishment at hisaction. 

Then, slowly, he turned his head. The professor was out of the room; thedemonstrator sat aloft on his impromptu rostrum, reading the _Q. Jour. Mi. Sci_. ; the rest of the examinees were busy, and with their backs tohim. Should he own up to the accident now? He knew quite clearly what thething was. It was a lenticel, a characteristic preparation from theelder-tree. His eyes roved over his intent fellow-students, and Wedderburnsuddenly glanced over his shoulder at him with a queer expression in hiseyes. The mental excitement that had kept Hill at an abnormal pitch ofvigour these two days gave way to a curious nervous tension. His book ofanswers was beside him. He did not write down what the thing was, but withone eye at the microscope he began making a hasty sketch of it. His mindwas full of this grotesque puzzle in ethics that had suddenly been sprungupon him. Should he identify it? or should he leave this questionunanswered? In that case Wedderburn would probably come out first in thesecond result. How could he tell now whether he might not have identifiedthe thing without shifting it? It was possible that Wedderburn had failedto recognise it, of course. Suppose Wedderburn too had shifted the slide?He looked up at the clock. There were fifteen minutes in which to make uphis mind. He gathered up his book of answers and the coloured pencils heused in illustrating his replies and walked back to his seat. 

He read through his manuscript, and then sat thinking and gnawing hisknuckle. It would look queer now if he owned up. He _must_ beatWedderburn. He forgot the examples of those starry gentlemen, John Burnsand Bradlaugh. Besides, he reflected, the glimpse of the rest of the sliphe had had was, after all, quite accidental, forced upon him by chance, akind of providential revelation rather than an unfair advantage. It wasnot nearly so dishonest to avail himself of that as it was of Broome, whobelieved in the efficacy of prayer, to pray daily for a first-class. "Fiveminutes more, " said the demonstrator, folding up his paper and becomingobservant. Hill watched the clock hands until two minutes remained; thenhe opened the book of answers, and, with hot ears and an affectation ofease, gave his drawing of the lenticel its name. 

When the second pass list appeared, the previous positions of Wedderburnand Hill were reversed, and the spectacled girl in green, who knew thedemonstrator in private life (where he was practically human), said thatin the result of the two examinations taken together Hill had theadvantage of a mark--167 to 166 out of a possible 200. Everyone admiredHill in a way, though the suspicion of "mugging" clung to him. But Hillwas to find congratulations and Miss Haysman's enhanced opinion of him, and even the decided decline in the crest of Wedderburn, tainted by anunhappy memory. He felt a remarkable access of energy at first, and thenote of a democracy marching to triumph returned to his debating-societyspeeches; he worked at his comparative anatomy with tremendous zeal andeffect, and he went on with his aesthetic education. But through it all, avivid little picture was continually coming before his mind's eye--of asneakish person manipulating a slide. 

No human being had witnessed the act, and he was cocksure that no higherpower existed to see, it; but for all that it worried him. Memories arenot dead things but alive; they dwindle in disuse, but they harden anddevelop in all sorts of queer ways if they are being continually fretted. Curiously enough, though at the time he perceived clearly that theshifting was accidental, as the days wore on, his memory became confusedabout it, until at last he was not sure--although he assured himself thathe _was_ sure--whether the movement had been absolutely involuntary. Then it is possible that Hill's dietary was conducive to morbidconscientiousness; a breakfast frequently eaten in a hurry, a midday bun, and, at such hours after five as chanced to be convenient, such meat ashis means determined, usually in a chop-house in a back street off theBrompton Road. Occasionally he treated himself to threepenny or ninepennyclassics, and they usually represented a suppression of potatoes or chops. It is indisputable that outbreaks of self-abasement and emotional revivalhave a distinct relation to periods of scarcity. But apart from thisinfluence on the feelings, there was in Hill a distinct aversion tofalsity that the blasphemous Landport cobbler had inculcated by strap andtongue from his earliest years. Of one fact about professed atheists I amconvinced; they may be--they usually are--fools, void of subtlety, revilers of holy institutions, brutal speakers, and mischievous knaves, but they lie with difficulty. If it were not so, if they had the faintestgrasp of the idea of compromise, they would simply be liberal churchmen. And, moreover, this memory poisoned his regard for Miss Haysman. For shenow so evidently preferred him to Wedderburn that he felt sure he caredfor her, and began reciprocating her attentions by timid marks of personalregard; at one time he even bought a bunch of violets, carried it about inhis pocket, and produced it, with a stumbling explanation, withered anddead, in the gallery of old iron. It poisoned, too, the denunciation ofcapitalist dishonesty that had been one of his life's pleasures. And, lastly, it poisoned his triumph in Wedderburn. Previously he had beenWedderburn's superior in his own eyes, and had raged simply at a want ofrecognition. Now he began to fret at the darker suspicion of positiveinferiority. He fancied he found justifications for his position inBrowning, but they vanished on analysis. At last--moved, curiously enough, by exactly the same motive forces that had resulted in his dishonesty--hewent to Professor Bindon, and made a clean breast of the whole affair. AsHill was a paid student, Professor Bindon did not ask him to sit down, andhe stood before the professor's desk as he made his confession. 

"It's a curious story, " said Professor Bindon, slowly realising how thething reflected on himself, and then letting his anger rise, --"a mostremarkable story. I can't understand your doing it, and I can't understandthis avowal. You're a type of student--Cambridge men would never dream--Isuppose I ought to have thought--why _did_ you cheat?"

"I didn't cheat, " said Hill. 

"But you have just been telling me you did. "

"I thought I explained--"

"Either you cheated or you did not cheat. "

"I said my motion was involuntary. "

"I am not a metaphysician, I am a servant of science--of fact. Youwere told not to move the slip. You did move the slip. If that is notcheating--"

"If I was a cheat, " said Hill, with the note of hysterics in his voice, "should I come here and tell you?"

"Your repentance, of course, does you credit, " said Professor Bindon, "butit does not alter the original facts. "

"No, sir, " said Hill, giving in in utter self-abasement. 

"Even now you cause an enormous amount of trouble. The examination listwill have to be revised. "

"I suppose so, sir. "

"Suppose so? Of course it must be revised. And I don't see how I canconscientiously pass you. "

"Not pass me?" said Hill. "Fail me?"

"It's the rule in all examinations. Or where should we be? What else didyou expect? You don't want to shirk the consequences of your own acts?"

"I thought, perhaps----" said Hill. And then, "Fail me? I thought, as Itold you, you would simply deduct the marks given for that slip. "

"Impossible!" said Bindon. "Besides, it would still leave you aboveWedderburn. Deduct only the marks! Preposterous! The DepartmentalRegulations distinctly say----"

"But it's my own admission, sir. "

"The Regulations say nothing whatever of the manner in which the mattercomes to light. They simply provide----"

"It will ruin me. If I fail this examination, they won't renew myscholarship. "

"You should have thought of that before. "

"But, sir, consider all my circumstances----"

"I cannot consider anything. Professors in this College are machines. TheRegulations will not even let us recommend our students for appointments. I am a machine, and you have worked me. I have to do----"

"It's very hard, sir. "

"Possibly it is. "

"If I am to be failed this examination, I might as well go home at once. "

"That is as you think proper. " Bindon's voice softened a little; heperceived he had been unjust, and, provided he did not contradict himself, he was disposed to amelioration. "As a private person, " he said, "I thinkthis confession of yours goes far to mitigate your offence. But you haveset the machinery in motion, and now it must take its course. I--I amreally sorry you gave way. "

A wave of emotion prevented Hill from answering. Suddenly, very vividly, he saw the heavily-lined face of the old Landport cobbler, his father. "Good God! What a fool I have been!" he said hotly and abruptly. 

"I hope, " said Bindon, "that it will be a lesson to you. "

But, curiously enough, they were not thinking of quite the sameindiscretion. 

There was a pause. 

"I would like a day to think, sir, and then I will let you know--aboutgoing home, I mean, " said Hill, moving towards the door. 

 * * * * *

The next day Hill's place was vacant. The spectacled girl in green was, asusual, first with the news. Wedderburn and Miss Haysman were talking of aperformance of _The Meistersingers_ when she came up to them. 

"Have you heard?" she said. 

"Heard what?"

"There was cheating in the examination. "

"Cheating!" said Wedderburn, with his face suddenly hot. "How?"

"That slide--"

"Moved? Never!"

"It was. That slide that we weren't to move--"

"Nonsense!" said Wedderburn. "Why! How could they find out? Who do theysay--?"

"It was Mr. Hill. "

_Hill_!"

"Mr. Hill!"

"Not--surely not the immaculate Hill?" said Wedderburn, recovering. 

"I don't believe it, " said Miss Haysman. "How do you know?"

"I _didn't_, " said the girl in spectacles. "But I know it now for afact. Mr. Hill went and confessed to Professor Bindon himself. "

"By Jove!" said Wedderburn. "Hill of all people. But I am always inclinedto distrust these philanthropists-on-principle--"

"Are you quite sure?" said Miss Haysman, with a catch in her breath. 

"Quite. It's dreadful, isn't it? But, you know, what can you expect? Hisfather is a cobbler. "

Then Miss Haysman astonished the girl in spectacles. 

"I don't care. I will not believe it, " she said, flushing darkly under herwarm-tinted skin. "I will not believe it until he has told me so himself--face to face. I would scarcely believe it then, " and abruptly she turnedher back on the girl in spectacles, and walked to her own place. 

"It's true, all the same, " said the girl in spectacles, peering andsmiling at Wedderburn. 

But Wedderburn did not answer her. She was indeed one of those people whoseemed destined to make unanswered remarks. 

 XIX. 

 THE CRYSTAL EGG. 

There was, until a year ago, a little and very grimy-looking shop nearSeven Dials, over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering, the name of "C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities, " was inscribed. The contentsof its window were curiously variegated. They comprised some elephanttusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys(one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a fly-blown ostrich eggor so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glassfish-tank. There was also, at the moment the story begins, a mass ofcrystal, worked into the shape of an egg and brilliantly polished. And atthat two people who stood outside the window were looking, one of them atall, thin clergyman, the other a black-bearded young man of duskycomplexion and unobtrusive costume. The dusky young man spoke with eagergesticulation, and seemed anxious for his companion to purchase thearticle. 

While they were there, Mr. Cave came into his shop, his beard stillwagging with the bread and butter of his tea. When he saw these men andthe object of their regard, his countenance fell. He glanced guiltily overhis shoulder, and softly shut the door. He was a little old man, with paleface and peculiar watery blue eyes; his hair was a dirty grey, and he worea shabby blue frock-coat, an ancient silk hat, and carpet slippers verymuch down at heel. He remained watching the two men as they talked. Theclergyman went deep into his trouser pocket, examined a handful of money, and showed his teeth in an agreeable smile. Mr. Cave seemed still moredepressed when they came into the shop. 

The clergyman, without any ceremony, asked the price of the crystal egg. Mr. Cave glanced nervously towards the door leading into the parlour, andsaid five pounds. The clergyman protested that the price was high, to hiscompanion as well as to Mr. Cave--it was, indeed, very much more than Mr. Cave had intended to ask when he had stocked the article--and an attemptat bargaining ensued. Mr. Cave stepped to the shop door, and held it open. "Five pounds is my price, " he said, as though he wished to save himselfthe trouble of unprofitable discussion. As he did so, the upper portion ofa woman's face appeared above the blind in the glass upper panel of thedoor leading into the parlour, and stared curiously at the two customers. "Five pounds is my price, " said Mr. Cave, with a quiver in his voice. 

The swarthy young man had so far remained a spectator, watching Cavekeenly. Now he spoke. "Give him five pounds, " he said. The clergymanglanced at him to see if he were in earnest, and when he looked at Mr. Cave again, he saw that the latter's face was white. "It's a lot ofmoney, " said the clergyman, and, diving into his pocket, began countinghis resources. He had little more than thirty shillings, and he appealedto his companion, with whom he seemed to be on terms of considerableintimacy. This gave Mr. Cave an opportunity of collecting his thoughts, and he began to explain in an agitated manner that the crystal was not, asa matter of fact, entirely free for sale. His two customers were naturallysurprised at this, and inquired why he had not thought of that before hebegan to bargain. Mr. Cave became confused, but he stuck to his story, that the crystal was not in the market that afternoon, that a probablepurchaser of it had already appeared. The two, treating this as an attemptto raise the price still further, made as if they would leave the shop. But at this point the parlour door opened, and the owner of the darkfringe and the little eyes appeared. 

She was a coarse-featured, corpulent woman, younger and very much largerthan Mr. Cave; she walked heavily, and her face was flushed. "That crystal_is_ for sale, " she said. "And five pounds is a good enough price forit. I can't think what you're about, Cave, not to take the gentleman'soffer!"

Mr. Cave, greatly perturbed by the irruption, looked angrily at her overthe rims of his spectacles, and, without excessive assurance, asserted hisright to manage his business in his own way. An altercation began. The twocustomers watched the scene with interest and some amusement, occasionallyassisting Mrs. Cave with suggestions. Mr. Cave, hard driven, persisted ina confused and impossible story of an inquiry for the crystal thatmorning, and his agitation became painful. But he stuck to his point withextraordinary persistence. It was the young Oriental who ended thiscurious controversy. He proposed that they should call again in the courseof two days--so as to give the alleged inquirer a fair chance. "And thenwe must insist, " said the clergyman. "Five pounds. " Mrs. Cave took it onherself to apologise for her husband, explaining that he was sometimes "alittle odd, " and as the two customers left, the couple prepared for a freediscussion of the incident in all its bearings. 

Mrs. Cave talked to her husband with singular directness. The poor littleman, quivering with emotion, muddled himself between his stories, maintaining on the one hand that he had another customer in view, and onthe other asserting that the crystal was honestly worth ten guineas. "Whydid you ask five pounds?" said his wife. "_Do_ let me manage mybusiness my own way!" said Mr. Cave. 

Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at supperthat night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a highopinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed aculminating folly. 

"It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before, " said the step-son, aloose-limbed lout of eighteen. 

"But _Five Pounds_!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative youngwoman of six-and-twenty. 

Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could only mumble weak assertionsthat he knew his own business best. They drove him from his half-eatensupper into the shop, to close it for the night, his ears aflame and tearsof vexation behind his spectacles. Why had he left the crystal in thewindow so long? The folly of it! That was the trouble closest in his mind. For a time he could see no way of evading sale. 

After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up andwent out and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the businessaspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in hotwater. Mr. Cave went into the shop, and stayed there until late, ostensibly to make ornamental rockeries for gold-fish cases, but reallyfor a private purpose that will be better explained later. The next dayMrs. Cave found that the crystal had been removed from the window, andwas lying behind some second-hand books on angling. She replaced it in aconspicuous position. But she did not argue further about it, as a nervousheadache disinclined her from debate. Mr. Cave was always disinclined. Theday passed disagreeably. Mr. Cave was, if anything, more absent-mindedthan usual, and uncommonly irritable withal. In the afternoon, when hiswife was taking her customary sleep, he removed the crystal from thewindow again. 

The next day Mr. Cave had to deliver a consignment of dog-fish at one ofthe hospital schools, where they were needed for dissection. In hisabsence Mrs. Cave's mind reverted to the topic of the crystal, and themethods of expenditure suitable to a windfall of five pounds. She hadalready devised some very agreeable expedients, among others a dress ofgreen silk for herself and a trip to Richmond, when a jangling of thefront door bell summoned her into the shop. The customer was anexamination coach who came to complain of the non-delivery of certainfrogs asked for the previous day. Mrs. Cave did not approve of thisparticular branch of Mr. Cave's business, and the gentleman, who hadcalled in a somewhat aggressive mood, retired after a brief exchange ofwords--entirely civil, so far as he was concerned. Mrs. Cave's eye thennaturally turned to the window; for the sight of the crystal was anassurance of the five pounds and of her dreams. What was her surprise tofind it gone!

She went to the place behind the locker on the counter, where she haddiscovered it the day before. It was not there; and she immediately beganan eager search about the shop. 

When Mr. Cave returned from his business with the dogfish, about a quarterto two in the afternoon, he found the shop in some confusion, and hiswife, extremely exasperated and on her knees behind the counter, routingamong his taxidermic material. Her face came up hot and angry over thecounter, as the jangling bell announced his return, and she forthwithaccused him of "hiding it. "

"Hid _what_?" asked Mr. Cave. 

"The crystal!"

At that Mr. Cave, apparently much surprised, rushed to the window. "Isn'tit here?" he said. "Great Heavens! what has become of it?"

Just then Mr. Cave's step-son re-entered the shop from, the inner room--hehad come home a minute or so before Mr. Cave--and he was blasphemingfreely. He was apprenticed to a second-hand furniture dealer down theroad, but he had his meals at home, and he was naturally annoyed to findno dinner ready. 

But when he heard of the loss of the crystal, he forgot his meal, and hisanger was diverted from his mother to his step-father. Their first idea, of course, was that he had hidden it. But Mr. Cave stoutly denied allknowledge of its fate, freely offering his bedabbled affidavit in thematter--and at last was worked up to the point of accusing, first, hiswife and then his stepson of having taken it with a view to a privatesale. So began an exceedingly acrimonious and emotional discussion, whichended for Mrs. Cave in a peculiar nervous condition midway betweenhysterics and amuck, and caused the step-son to be half-an-hour late atthe furniture establishment in the afternoon. Mr. Cave took refuge fromhis wife's emotions in the shop. 

In the evening the matter was resumed, with less passion and in a judicialspirit, under the presidency of the step-daughter. The supper passedunhappily and culminated in a painful scene. Mr. Cave gave way at last toextreme exasperation, and went out banging the front door violently. Therest of the family, having discussed him with the freedom his absencewarranted, hunted the house from garret to cellar, hoping to light uponthe crystal. 

The next day the two customers called again. They were received by Mrs. Cave almost in tears. It transpired that no one _could_ imagine allthat she had stood from Cave at various times in her married pilgrimage.... She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance. The clergymanand the Oriental laughed silently at one another, and said it was veryextraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them the completehistory of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs. Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address, so that, if shecould get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it. The address wasduly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs. Cave can remembernothing about it. 

In the evening of that day the Caves seem to have exhausted theiremotions, and Mr. Cave, who had been out in the afternoon, supped in agloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassionedcontroversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badlystrained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customerreappeared. 

Now, without mincing the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar. He knew perfectly well where the crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr. Jacoby Wace, Assistant Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital, Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by a blackvelvet cloth, and beside a decanter of American whisky. It is from Mr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon which this narrative is based werederived. Cave had taken off the thing to the hospital hidden in thedog-fish sack, and there had pressed the young investigator to keep it forhim. Mr. Wace was a little dubious at first. His relationship to Cave waspeculiar. He had a taste for singular characters, and he had more thanonce invited the old man to smoke and drink in his rooms, and to unfoldhis rather amusing views of life in general and of his wife in particular. Mr. Wace had encountered Mrs. Cave, too, on occasions when Mr. Cave wasnot at home to attend to him. He knew the constant interference to whichCave was subjected, and having weighed the story judicially, he decided togive the crystal a refuge. Mr. Cave promised to explain the reasons forhis remarkable affection for the crystal more fully on a later occasion, but he spoke distinctly of seeing visions therein. He called on Mr. Wacethe same evening. 

He told a complicated story. The crystal he said had come into hispossession with other oddments at the forced sale of another curiositydealer's effects, and not knowing what its value might be, he had ticketedit at ten shillings. It had hung upon his hands at that price for somemonths, and he was thinking of "reducing the figure, " when he made asingular discovery. 

At that time his health was very bad--and it must be borne in mind that, throughout all this experience, his physical condition was one of ebb--andhe was in considerable distress by reason of the negligence, the positiveill-treatment even, he received from his wife and step-children. His wifewas vain, extravagant, unfeeling, and had a growing taste for privatedrinking; his step-daughter was mean and over-reaching; and his step-sonhad conceived a violent dislike for him, and lost no chance of showing it. The requirements of his business pressed heavily upon him, and Mr. Wacedoes not think that he was altogether free from occasional intemperance. He had begun life in a comfortable position, he was a man of faireducation, and he suffered, for weeks at a stretch, from melancholia andinsomnia. Afraid to disturb his family, he would slip quietly from hiswife's side, when his thoughts became intolerable, and wander about thehouse. And about three o'clock one morning, late in August, chancedirected him into the shop. 

The dirty little place was impenetrably black except in one spot, where heperceived an unusual glow of light. Approaching this, he discovered it tobe the crystal egg, which was standing on the corner of the countertowards the window. A thin ray smote through a crack in the shutters, impinged upon the object, and seemed as it were to fill its entireinterior. 

It occurred to Mr. Cave that this was not in accordance with the laws ofoptics as he had known them in his younger days. He could understand therays being refracted by the crystal and coming to a focus in its interior, but this diffusion jarred with his physical conceptions. He approached thecrystal nearly, peering into it and round it, with a transient revival ofthe scientific curiosity that in his youth had determined his choice of acalling. He was surprised to find the light not steady, but writhingwithin the substance of the egg, as though that object was a hollow sphereof some luminous vapour. In moving about to get different points of view, he suddenly found that he had come between it and the ray, and that thecrystal none the less remained luminous. Greatly astonished, he lifted itout of the light ray and carried it to the darkest part of the shop. Itremained bright for some four or five minutes, when it slowly faded andwent out. He placed it in the thin streak of daylight, and itsluminousness was almost immediately restored. 

So far, at least, Mr. Wace was able to verify the remarkable story of Mr. Cave. He has himself repeatedly held this crystal in a ray of light (whichhad to be of a less diameter than one millimetre). And in a perfectdarkness, such as could be produced by velvet wrapping, the crystal didundoubtedly appear very faintly phosphorescent. It would seem, however, that the luminousness was of some exceptional sort, and not equallyvisible to all eyes; for Mr. Harbinger--whose name will be familiar to thescientific reader in connection with the Pasteur Institute--was quiteunable to see any light whatever. And Mr. Wace's own capacity for itsappreciation was out of comparison inferior to that of Mr. Cave's. Evenwith Mr. Cave the power varied very considerably: his vision was mostvivid during states of extreme weakness and fatigue. 

Now, from the outset, this light in the crystal exercised a curiousfascination upon Mr. Cave. And it says more for his loneliness of soulthan a volume of pathetic writing could do, that he told no human being ofhis curious observations. He seems to have been living in such anatmosphere of petty spite that to admit the existence of a pleasure wouldhave been to risk the loss of it. He found that as the dawn advanced, andthe amount of diffused light increased, the crystal became to allappearance non-luminous. And for some time he was unable to see anythingin it, except at night-time, in dark corners of the shop. 

But the use of an old velvet cloth, which he used as a background for acollection of minerals, occurred to him, and by doubling this, and puttingit over his head and hands, he was able to get a sight of the luminousmovement within the crystal even in the day-time. He was very cautiouslest he should be thus discovered by his wife, and he practised thisoccupation only in the afternoons, while she was asleep upstairs, and thencircumspectly in a hollow under the counter. And one day, turning thecrystal about in his hands, he saw something. It came and went like aflash, but it gave him the impression that the object had for a momentopened to him the view of a wide and spacious and strange country; andturning it about, he did, just as the light faded, see the same visionagain. 

Now it would be tedious and unnecessary to state all the phases of Mr. Cave's discovery from this point. Suffice that the effect was this: thecrystal, being peered into at an angle of about 137 degrees from thedirection of the illuminating ray, gave a clear and consistent picture ofa wide and peculiar country-side. It was not dream-like at all: itproduced a definite impression of reality, and the better the light themore real and solid it seemed. It was a moving picture: that is to say, certain objects moved in it, but slowly in an orderly manner like realthings, and, according as the direction of the lighting and visionchanged, the picture changed also. It must, indeed, have been like lookingthrough an oval glass at a view, and turning the glass about to get atdifferent aspects. 

Mr. Cave's statements, Mr. Wace assures me, were extremely circumstantial, and entirely free from any of that emotional quality that taintshallucinatory impressions. But it must be remembered that all the effortsof Mr. Wace to see any similar clarity in the faint opalescence of thecrystal were wholly unsuccessful, try as he would. The difference inintensity of the impressions received by the two men was very great, andit is quite conceivable that what was a view to Mr. Cave was a mereblurred nebulosity to Mr. Wace. 

The view, as Mr. Cave described it, was invariably of an extensive plain, and he seemed always to be looking at it from a considerable height, as iffrom a tower or a mast. To the east and to the west the plain was boundedat a remote distance by vast reddish cliffs, which reminded him of thosehe had seen in some picture; but what the picture was Mr. Wace was unableto ascertain. These cliffs passed north and south--he could tell thepoints of the compass by the stars that were visible of a night--recedingin an almost illimitable perspective and fading into the mists of thedistance before they met. He was nearer the eastern set of cliffs; on theoccasion of his first vision the sun was rising over them, and blackagainst the sunlight and pale against their shadow appeared a multitude ofsoaring forms that Mr. Cave regarded as birds. A vast range of buildingsspread below him; he seemed to be looking down upon them; and as theyapproached the blurred and refracted edge of the picture they becameindistinct. There were also trees curious in shape, and in colouring adeep mossy green and an exquisite grey, beside a wide and shining canal. And something great and brilliantly coloured flew across the picture. Butthe first time Mr. Cave saw these pictures he saw only in flashes, hishands shook, his head moved, the vision came and went, and grew foggy andindistinct. And at first he had the greatest difficulty in finding thepicture again once the direction of it was lost. 

His next clear vision, which came about a week after the first, theinterval having yielded nothing but tantalising glimpses and some usefulexperience, showed him the view down the length of the valley. The viewwas different, but he had a curious persuasion, which his subsequentobservations abundantly confirmed, that he was regarding the strange worldfrom exactly the same spot, although he was looking in a differentdirection. The long façade of the great building, whose roof he had lookeddown upon before, was now receding in perspective. He recognised the roof. In the front of the façade was a terrace of massive proportions andextraordinary length, and down the middle of the terrace, at certainintervals, stood huge but very graceful masts, bearing small shiny objectswhich reflected the setting sun. The import of these small objects did notoccur to Mr. Cave until some time after, as he was describing the scene toMr. Wace. The terrace overhung a thicket of the most luxuriant andgraceful vegetation, and beyond this was a wide grassy lawn on whichcertain broad creatures, in form like beetles but enormously larger, reposed. Beyond this again was a richly decorated causeway of pinkishstone; and beyond that, and lined with dense red weeds, and passing up thevalley exactly parallel with the distant cliffs, was a broad andmirror-like expanse of water. The air seemed full of squadrons of greatbirds, manoeuvring in stately curves; and across the river was a multitudeof splendid buildings, richly coloured and glittering with metallic traceryand facets, among a forest of moss-like and lichenous trees. And suddenlysomething flapped repeatedly across the vision, like the fluttering of ajewelled fan or the beating of a wing, and a face, or rather the upperpart of a face with very large eyes, came as it were close to his own andas if on the other side of the crystal. Mr. Cave was so startled and soimpressed by the absolute reality of these eyes that he drew his head backfrom the crystal to look behind it. He had become so absorbed in watchingthat he was quite surprised to find himself in the cool darkness of hislittle shop, with its familiar odour of methyl, mustiness, and decay. Andas he blinked about him, the glowing crystal faded and went out. 

Such were the first general impressions of Mr. Cave. The story iscuriously direct and circumstantial. From the outset, when the valleyfirst flashed momentarily on his senses, his imagination was strangelyaffected, and as he began to appreciate the details of the scene he saw, his wonder rose to the point of a passion. He went about his businesslistless and distraught, thinking only of the time when he should be ableto return to his watching. And then a few weeks after his first sight ofthe valley came the two customers, the stress and excitement of theiroffer, and the narrow escape of the crystal from sale, as I have alreadytold. 

Now, while the thing was Mr. Cave's secret, it remained a mere wonder, athing to creep to covertly and peep at, as a child might peep upon aforbidden garden. But Mr. Wace has, for a young scientific investigator, aparticularly lucid and consecutive habit of mind. Directly the crystal andits story came to him, and he had satisfied himself, by seeing thephosphorescence with his own eyes, that there really was a certainevidence for Mr. Cave's statements, he proceeded to develop the mattersystematically. Mr. Cave was only too eager to come and feast his eyes onthis wonderland he saw, and he came every night from half-past eight untilhalf-past ten, and sometimes, in Mr. Wace's absence, during the day. OnSunday afternoons, also, he came. From the outset Mr. Wace made copiousnotes, and it was due to his scientific method that the relation betweenthe direction from which the initiating ray entered the crystal and theorientation of the picture were proved. And, by covering the crystal in abox perforated only with a small aperture to admit the exciting ray, andby substituting black holland for his buff blinds, he greatly improved theconditions of the observations; so that in a little while they were ableto survey the valley in any direction they desired. 

So having cleared the way, we may give a brief account of this visionaryworld within the crystal. The things were in all cases seen by Mr. Cave, and the method of working was invariably for him to watch the crystal andreport what he saw, while Mr. Wace (who as a science student had learntthe trick of writing in the dark) wrote a brief note of his report. Whenthe crystal faded, it was put into its box in the proper position and theelectric light turned on. Mr. Wace asked questions, and suggestedobservations to clear up difficult points. Nothing, indeed, could havebeen less visionary and more matter-of-fact. 

The attention of Mr. Cave had been speedily directed to the bird-likecreatures he had seen so abundantly present in each of his earliervisions. His first impression was soon corrected, and he considered for atime that they might represent a diurnal species of bat. Then he thought, grotesquely enough, that they might be cherubs. Their heads were round andcuriously human, and it was the eyes of one of them that had so startledhim on his second observation. They had broad, silvery wings, notfeathered, but glistening almost as brilliantly as new-killed fish andwith the same subtle play of colour, and these wings were not built on theplan of bird-wing or bat, Mr. Wace learned, but supported by curved ribsradiating from the body. (A sort of butterfly wing with curved ribs seemsbest to express their appearance. ) The body was small, but fitted with twobunches of prehensile organs, like long tentacles, immediately under themouth. Incredible as it appeared to Mr. Wace, the persuasion at lastbecame irresistible that it was these creatures which owned the greatquasi-human buildings and the magnificent garden that made the broadvalley so splendid. And Mr. Cave perceived that the buildings, with otherpeculiarities, had no doors, but that the great circular windows, whichopened freely, gave the creatures egress and entrance. They would alightupon their tentacles, fold their wings to a smallness almost rod-like, andhop into the interior. But among them was a multitude of smaller-wingedcreatures, like great dragon-flies and moths and flying beetles, andacross the greensward brilliantly-coloured gigantic ground-beetles crawledlazily to and fro. Moreover, on the causeways and terraces, large-headedcreatures similar to the greater winged flies, but wingless, were visible, hopping busily upon their hand-like tangle of tentacles. 

Allusion has already been made to the glittering objects upon masts thatstood upon the terrace of the nearer building. It dawned upon Mr. Cave, after regarding one of these masts very fixedly on one particularly vividday that the glittering object there was a crystal exactly like that intowhich he peered. And a still more careful scrutiny convinced him that eachone in a vista of nearly twenty carried a similar object. 

Occasionally one of the large flying creatures would flutter up to one, and folding its wings and coiling a number of its tentacles about themast, would regard the crystal fixedly for a space, --sometimes for as longas fifteen minutes. And a series of observations, made at the suggestionof Mr. Wace, convinced both watchers that, so far as this visionary worldwas concerned, the crystal into which they peered actually stood at thesummit of the end-most mast on the terrace, and that on one occasion atleast one of these inhabitants of this other world had looked into Mr. Cave's face while he was making these observations. 

So much for the essential facts of this very singular story. Unless wedismiss it all as the ingenious fabrication of Mr. Wace, we have tobelieve one of two things: either that Mr. Cave's crystal was in twoworlds at once, and that while it was carried about in one, it remainedstationary in the other, which seems altogether absurd; or else that ithad some peculiar relation of sympathy with another and exactly similarcrystal in this other world, so that what was seen in the interior of theone in this world was, under suitable conditions, visible to an observerin the corresponding crystal in the other world; and _vice versa_. Atpresent, indeed, we do not know of any way in which two crystals could socome _en rapport_, but nowadays we know enough to understand that thething is not altogether impossible. This view of the crystals as _enrapport_ was the supposition that occurred to Mr. Wace, and to me atleast it seems extremely plausible... 

And where was this other world? On this, also, the alert intelligence ofMr. Wace speedily threw light. After sunset, the sky darkened rapidly--there was a very brief twilight interval indeed--and the stars shone out. They were recognisably the same as those we see, arranged in the sameconstellations. Mr. Cave recognised the Bear, the Pleiades, Aldebaran, andSirius; so that the other world must be somewhere in the solar system, and, at the utmost, only a few hundreds of millions of miles from our own. Following up this clue, Mr. Wace learned that the midnight sky was adarker blue even than our midwinter sky, and that the sun seemed a littlesmaller. _And there were two small moons!_ "like our moon butsmaller, and quite differently marked, " one of which moved so rapidly thatits motion was clearly visible as one regarded it. These moons were neverhigh in the sky, but vanished as they rose: that is, every time theyrevolved they were eclipsed because they were so near their primaryplanet. And all this answers quite completely, although Mr. Cave did notknow it, to what must be the condition of things on Mars. 

Indeed, it seems an exceedingly plausible conclusion that peering intothis crystal Mr. Cave did actually see the planet Mars and itsinhabitants. And if that be the case, then the evening star that shone sobrilliantly in the sky of that distant vision was neither more nor lessthan our own familiar earth. 

For a time the Martians--if they were Martians--do not seem to have knownof Mr. Cave's inspection. Once or twice one would come to peer, and goaway very shortly to some other mast, as though the vision wasunsatisfactory. During this time Mr. Cave was able to watch theproceedings of these winged people without being disturbed by theirattentions, and although his report is necessarily vague and fragmentary, it is nevertheless very suggestive. Imagine the impression of humanity aMartian observer would get who, after a difficult process of preparationand with considerable fatigue to the eyes, was able to peer at London fromthe steeple of St. Martin's Church for stretches, at longest, of fourminutes at a time. Mr. Cave was unable to ascertain if the winged Martianswere the same as the Martians who hopped about the causeways and terraces, and if the latter could put on wings at will. He several times saw certainclumsy bipeds, dimly suggestive of apes, white and partially translucent, feeding among certain of the lichenous trees, and once some of these fledbefore one of the hopping, round-headed Martians. The latter caught one inits tentacles, and then the picture faded suddenly and left Mr. Cave mosttantalisingly in the dark. On another occasion a vast thing, that Mr. Cavethought at first was some gigantic insect, appeared advancing along thecauseway beside the canal with extraordinary rapidity. As this drew nearerMr. Cave perceived that it was a mechanism of shining metals and ofextraordinary complexity. And then, when he looked again, it had passedout of sight. 

After a time Mr. Wace aspired to attract the attention of the Martians, and the next time that the strange eyes of one of them appeared close tothe crystal Mr. Cave cried out and sprang away, and they immediatelyturned on the light and began to gesticulate in a manner suggestive ofsignalling. But when at last Mr. Cave examined the crystal again theMartian had departed. 

Thus far these observations had progressed in early November, and then Mr. Cave, feeling that the suspicions of his family about the crystal wereallayed, began to take it to and fro with him in order that, as occasionarose in the daytime or night, he might comfort himself with what was fastbecoming the most real thing in his existence. 

In December Mr. Wace's work in connection with a forthcoming examinationbecame heavy, the sittings were reluctantly suspended for a week, and forten or eleven days--he is not quite sure which--he saw nothing of Cave. Hethen grew anxious to resume these investigations, and, the stress of hisseasonal labours being abated, he went down to Seven Dials. At the cornerhe noticed a shutter before a bird fancier's window, and then another at acobbler's. Mr. Cave's shop was closed. 

He rapped and the door was opened by the step-son in black. He at oncecalled Mrs. Cave, who was, Mr. Wace could not but observe, in cheap butample widow's weeds of the most imposing pattern. Without any very greatsurprise Mr. Wace learnt that Cave was dead and already buried. She was intears, and her voice was a little thick. She had just returned fromHighgate. Her mind seemed occupied with her own prospects and thehonourable details of the obsequies, but Mr. Wace was at last able tolearn the particulars of Cave's death. He had been found dead in his shopin the early morning, the day after his last visit to Mr. Wace, and thecrystal had been clasped in his stone-cold hands. His face was smiling, said Mrs. Cave, and the velvet cloth from the minerals lay on the floor athis feet. He must have been dead five or six hours when he was found. 

This came as a great shock to Wace, and he began to reproach himselfbitterly for having neglected the plain symptoms of the old man'sill-health. But his chief thought was of the crystal. He approached thattopic in a gingerly manner, because he knew Mrs. Cave's peculiarities. Hewas dumfounded to learn that it was sold. 

Mrs. Cave's first impulse, directly Cave's body had been taken upstairs, had been to write to the mad clergyman who had offered five pounds for thecrystal, informing him of its recovery; but after a violent hunt, in whichher daughter joined her, they were convinced of the loss of his address. As they were without the means required to mourn and bury Cave in theelaborate style the dignity of an old Seven Dials inhabitant demands, theyhad appealed to a friendly fellow-tradesman in Great Portland Street. Hehad very kindly taken over a portion of the stock at a valuation. Thevaluation was his own, and the crystal egg was included in one of thelots. Mr. Wace, after a few suitable condolences, a little off-handedlyproffered perhaps, hurried at once to Great Portland Street. But there helearned that the crystal egg had already been sold to a tall, dark man ingrey. And there the material facts in this curious, and to me at leastvery suggestive, story come abruptly to an end. The Great Portland Streetdealer did not know who the tall dark man in grey was, nor had he observedhim with sufficient attention to describe him minutely. He did not evenknow which way this person had gone after leaving the shop. For a time Mr. Wace remained in the shop, trying the dealer's patience with hopelessquestions, venting his own exasperation. And at last, realising abruptlythat the whole thing had passed out of his hands, had vanished like avision of the night, he returned to his own rooms, a little astonished tofind the notes he had made still tangible and visible upon, his untidytable. 

His annoyance and disappointment were naturally very great. He made asecond call (equally ineffectual) upon the Great Portland Street dealer, and he resorted to advertisements in such periodicals as were lively tocome into the hands of a _bric-a-brac_ collector. He also wroteletters to _The Daily Chronicle_ and _Nature_, but both thoseperiodicals, suspecting a hoax, asked him to reconsider his action beforethey printed, and he was advised that such a strange story, unfortunatelyso bare of supporting evidence, might imperil his reputation as aninvestigator. Moreover, the calls of his proper work were urgent. So thatafter a month or so, save for an occasional reminder to certain dealers, he had reluctantly to abandon the quest for the crystal egg, and from thatday to this it remains undiscovered. Occasionally, however, he tells me, and I can quite believe him, he has bursts of zeal, in which he abandonshis more urgent occupation and resumes the search. 

Whether or not it will remain lost for ever, with the material and originof it, are things equally speculative at the present time. If the presentpurchaser is a collector, one would have expected the enquiries of Mr. Wace to have reached him through the dealers. He has been able to discoverMr. Cave's clergyman and "Oriental"--no other than the Rev. James Parkerand the young Prince of Bosso-Kuni in Java. I am obliged to them forcertain particulars. The object of the Prince was simply curiosity--andextravagance. He was so eager to buy because Cave was so oddly reluctantto sell. It is just as possible that the buyer in the second instance wassimply a casual purchaser and not a collector at all, and the crystal egg, for all I know, may at the present moment be within a mile of me, decorating a drawing-room or serving as a paper-weight--its remarkablefunctions all unknown. Indeed, it is partly with the idea of such apossibility that I have thrown this narrative into a form that will giveit a chance of being read by the ordinary consumer of fiction. 

My own ideas in the matter are practically identical with those of Mr. Wace. I believe the crystal on the mast in Mars and the crystal egg of Mr. Cave's to be in some physical, but at present quite inexplicable, way_en rapport_, and we both believe further that the terrestrialcrystal must have been--possibly at some remote date--sent hither fromthat planet, in order to give the Martians a near view of our affairs. Possibly the fellows to the crystals on the other masts are also on ourglobe. No theory of hallucination suffices for the facts. 

 XX. 

 THE STAR. 

It was on the first day of the new year that the announcement was made, almost simultaneously from three observatories, that the motion of theplanet Neptune, the outermost of all the planets that wheel about the sun, had become very erratic. Ogilvy had already called attention to asuspected retardation in its velocity in December. Such a piece of newswas scarcely calculated to interest a world the greater portion of whoseinhabitants were unaware of the existence of the planet Neptune, noroutside the astronomical profession did the subsequent discovery of afaint remote speck of light in the region of the perturbed planet causeany very great excitement. Scientific people, however, found theintelligence remarkable enough, even before it became known that the newbody was rapidly growing larger and brighter, that its motion was quitedifferent from the orderly progress of the planets, and that thedeflection of Neptune and its satellite was becoming now of anunprecedented kind. 

Few people without a training in science can realise the huge isolation ofthe solar system. The sun with its specks of planets, its dust ofplanetoids, and its impalpable comets, swims in a vacant immensity thatalmost defeats the imagination. Beyond the orbit of Neptune there isspace, vacant so far as human observation has penetrated, without warmthor light or sound, blank emptiness, for twenty million times a millionmiles. That is the smallest estimate of the distance to be traversedbefore the very nearest of the stars is attained. And, saving a few cometsmore unsubstantial than the thinnest flame, no matter had ever to humanknowledge crossed this gulf of space until early in the twentieth centurythis strange wanderer appeared. A vast mass of matter it was, bulky, heavy, rushing without warning out of the black mystery of the sky intothe radiance of the sun. By the second day it was clearly visible to anydecent instrument, as a speck with a barely sensible diameter, in theconstellation Leo near Regulus. In a little while an opera glass couldattain it. 

On the third day of the new year the newspaper readers of two hemisphereswere made aware for the first time of the real importance of this unusualapparition in the heavens. "A Planetary Collision, " one London paperheaded the news, and proclaimed Duchaine's opinion that this strange newplanet would probably collide with Neptune. The leader-writers enlargedupon the topic. So that in most of the capitals of the world, on January3rd, there was an expectation, however vague, of some imminent phenomenonin the sky; and as the night followed the sunset round the globe, thousands of men turned their eyes skyward to see--the old familiar starsjust as they had always been. 

Until it was dawn in London and Pollux setting and the stars overheadgrown pale. The Winter's dawn it was, a sickly filtering accumulation ofdaylight, and the light of gas and candles shone yellow in the windows toshow where people were astir. But the yawning policeman saw the thing, thebusy crowds in the markets stopped agape, workmen going to their workbetimes, milkmen, the drivers of news-carts, dissipation going home jadedand pale, homeless wanderers, sentinels on their beats, and, in thecountry, labourers trudging afield, poachers slinking home, all over thedusky quickening country it could be seen--and out at sea by seamenwatching for the day--a great white star, come suddenly into the westwardsky!

Brighter it was than any star in our skies; brighter than the evening starat its brightest. It still glowed out white and large, no mere twinklingspot of light, but a small, round, clear shining disc, an hour after theday had come. And where science has not reached, men stared and feared, telling one another of the wars and pestilences that are foreshadowed bythese fiery signs in the Heavens. Sturdy Boers, dusky Hottentots, GoldCoast negroes, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, stood in the warmth ofthe sunrise watching the setting of this strange new star. 

And in a hundred observatories there had been suppressed excitement, rising almost to shouting pitch, as the two remote bodies had rushedtogether, and a hurrying to and fro, to gather photographic apparatus andspectroscope, and this appliance and that, to record this novel, astonishing sight, the destruction of a world. For it was a world, asister planet of our earth, far greater than our earth indeed, that had sosuddenly flashed into flaming death. Neptune it was had been struck, fairly and squarely, by the strange planet from outer space, and the heatof the concussion had incontinently turned two solid globes into one vastmass of incandescence. Round the world that day, two hours before thedawn, went the pallid great white star, fading only as it sank westwardand the sun mounted above it. Everywhere men marvelled at it, but of allthose who saw it none could have marvelled more than those sailors, habitual watchers of the stars, who far away at sea had heard nothing ofits advent and saw it now rise like a pigmy moon and climb zenithward andhang overhead and sink westward with the passing of the night. 

And when next it rose over Europe everywhere were crowds of watchers onhilly slopes, on house-roofs, in open spaces, staring eastward for therising of the great new star. It rose with a white glow in front of it, like the glare of a white fire, and those who had seen it come intoexistence the night before cried out at the sight of it. "It is larger, "they cried. "It is brighter!" And indeed the moon, a quarter full andsinking in the west, was in its apparent size beyond comparison, butscarcely in all its breadth had it as much brightness now as the littlecircle of the strange new star. 

"It is brighter!" cried the people clustering in the streets. But in thedim observatories the watchers held their breath and peered at oneanother. "_It is nearer_!" they said. "_Nearer_!"

And voice after voice repeated, "It is nearer, " and the clicking telegraphtook that up, and it trembled along telephone wires, and in a thousandcities grimy compositors fingered the type. "It is nearer. " Men writing inoffices, struck with a strange realisation, flung down their pens, mentalking in a thousand places suddenly came upon a grotesque possibility inthose words, "It is nearer. " It hurried along awakening streets, it wasshouted down the frost-stilled ways of quiet villages, men who had readthese things from the throbbing tape stood in yellow-lit doorways shoutingthe news to the passers-by. "It is nearer, " Pretty women, flushed andglittering, heard the news told jestingly between the dances, and feignedan intelligent interest they did not feel. "Nearer! Indeed. How curious!How very, very clever people must be to find out things like that!"

Lonely tramps faring through the wintry night murmured those words tocomfort themselves--looking skyward. "It has need to be nearer, for thenight's as cold as charity. Don't seem much warmth from it if it _is_nearer, all the same. "

"What is a new star to me?" cried the weeping woman, kneeling beside herdead. 

The schoolboy, rising early for his examination work, puzzled it out forhimself--with the great white star shining broad and bright through thefrost-flowers of his window. "Centrifugal, centripetal, " he said, with hischin on his fist. "Stop a planet in its flight, rob it of its centrifugalforce, what then? Centripetal has it, and down it falls into the sun! Andthis--!

"Do _we_ come in the way? I wonder--"

The light of that day went the way of its brethren, and with the laterwatches of the frosty darkness rose the strange star again. And it was nowso bright that the waxing moon seemed but a pale yellow ghost of itself, hanging huge in the sunset. In a South African city a great man hadmarried, and the streets were alight to welcome his return with his bride. "Even the skies have illuminated, " said the flatterer. Under Capricorn, two negro lovers, daring the wild beasts and evil spirits for love of oneanother, crouched together in a cane brake where the fire-flies hovered. "That is our star, " they whispered, and felt strangely comforted by thesweet brilliance of its light. 

The master mathematician sat in his private room and pushed the papers fromhim. His calculations were already finished. In a small white phial therestill remained a little of the drug that had kept him awake and active forfour long nights. Each day, serene, explicit, patient as ever, he hadgiven his lecture to his students, and then had come back at once to thismomentous calculation. His face was grave, a little drawn and hectic fromhis drugged activity. For some time he seemed lost in thought. Then hewent to the window, and the blind went up with a click. Half-way up thesky, over the clustering roofs, chimneys, and steeples of the city, hungthe star. 

He looked at it as one might look into the eyes of a brave enemy. "You maykill me, " he said after a silence. "But I can hold you--and all theuniverse for that matter--in the grip of this small brain. I would notchange. Even now. "

He looked at the little phial. "There will be no need of sleep again, " hesaid. The next day at noon, punctual to the minute, he entered his lecturetheatre, put his hat on the end of the table as his habit was, andcarefully selected a large piece of chalk. It was a joke among hisstudents that he could not lecture without that piece of chalk to fumblein his fingers, and once he had been stricken to impotence by their hidinghis supply. He came and looked under his grey eyebrows at the rising tiersof young fresh faces, and spoke with his accustomed studied commonness ofphrasing. 

"Circumstances have arisen--circumstances beyond my control, " he said, andpaused, "which will debar me from completing the course I had designed. It would seem, gentlemen, if I may put the thing clearly and briefly, that--Man has lived in vain. "

The students glanced at one another. Had they heard aright? Mad? Raisedeyebrows and grinning lips there were, but one or two faces remainedintent upon his calm grey-fringed face. "It will be interesting, " he wassaying, "to devote this morning to an exposition, so far as I can make itclear to you, of the calculations that have led me to this conclusion. Letus assume----"

He turned towards the blackboard, meditating a diagram in the way that wasusual to him. "What was that about 'lived in vain'?" whispered one studentto another. "Listen, " said the other, nodding towards the lecturer. 

And presently they began to understand. 

 * * * * *

That night the star rose later, for its proper eastward motion had carriedit some way across Leo towards Virgo, and its brightness was so great thatthe sky became a luminous blue as it rose, and every star was hidden inits turn, save only Jupiter near the zenith, Capella, Aldebaran, Sirius, and the pointers of the Bear. It was very white and beautiful. In manyparts of the world that night a pallid halo encircled it about. It wasperceptibly larger; in the clear refractive sky of the tropics it seemedas if it were nearly a quarter the size of the moon. The frost was stillon the ground in England, but the world was as brightly lit as if it weremidsummer moonlight. One could see to read quite ordinary print by thatcold, clear light, and in the cities the lamps burnt yellow and wan. 

And everywhere the world was awake that night, and throughout Christendoma sombre murmur hung in the keen air over the country-side like thebelling of bees in the heather, and this murmurous tumult grew to aclangour in the cities. It was the tolling of the bells in a millionbelfry towers and steeples, summoning the people to sleep no more, to sinno more, but to gather in their churches and pray. And overhead, growinglarger and brighter, as the earth rolled on its way and the night passed, rose the dazzling star. 

And the streets and houses were alight in all the cities, the shipyardsglared, and whatever roads led to high country were lit and crowded allnight long. And in all the seas about the civilized lands, ships withthrobbing engines, and ships with bellying sails, crowded with men andliving creatures, were standing out to ocean and the north. For alreadythe warning of the master mathematician had been telegraphed all over theworld and translated into a hundred tongues. The new planet and Neptune, locked in a fiery embrace, were whirling headlong, ever faster and fastertowards the sun. Already every second this blazing mass flew a hundredmiles, and every second its terrific velocity increased. As it flew now, indeed, it must pass a hundred million of miles, wide of the earth andscarcely affect it. But near its destined path, as yet only slightlyperturbed, spun the mighty planet Jupiter and his moons sweeping splendidround the sun. Every moment now the attraction between the fiery star andthe greatest of the planets grew stronger. And the result of thatattraction? Inevitably Jupiter would be deflected from its orbit intoan elliptical path, and the burning star, swung by his attraction wide ofits sunward rush, would "describe a curved path, " and perhaps collidewith, and certainly pass very close to, our earth. "Earthquakes, volcanicoutbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, floods, and a steady rise in temperatureto I know not what limit"--so prophesied the master mathematician. 

And overhead, to carry out his words, lonely and cold and livid blazed thestar of the coming doom. 

To many who stared at it that night until their eyes ached it seemed thatit was visibly approaching. And that night, too, the weather changed, andthe frost that had gripped all Central Europe and France and Englandsoftened towards a thaw. 

But you must not imagine, because I have spoken of people praying throughthe night and people going aboard ships and people fleeing towardsmountainous country, that the whole world was already in a terror becauseof the star. As a matter of fact, use and wont still ruled the world, andsave for the talk of idle moments and the splendour of the night, ninehuman beings out of ten were still busy at their common occupations. Inall the cities the shops, save one here and there, opened and closed attheir proper hours, the doctor and the undertaker plied their trades, theworkers gathered in the factories, soldiers drilled, scholars studied, lovers sought one another, thieves lurked and fled, politicians plannedtheir schemes. The presses of the newspapers roared through the nights, and many a priest of this church and that would not open his holy buildingto further what he considered a foolish panic. The newspapers insisted onthe lesson of the year 1000--for then, too, people had anticipated theend. The star was no star--mere gas--a comet; and were it a star it couldnot possibly strike the earth. There was no precedent for such a thing. Common-sense was sturdy everywhere, scornful, jesting, a little inclinedto persecute the obdurate fearful. That night, at seven-fifteen byGreenwich time, the star would be at its nearest to Jupiter. Then theworld would see the turn things would take. The master mathematician'sgrim warnings were treated by many as so much mere elaborateself-advertisement. Common-sense at last, a little heated by argument, signified its unalterable convictions by going to bed. So, too, barbarismand savagery, already tired of the novelty, went about their nightlybusiness, and, save for a howling dog here and there, the beast world leftthe star unheeded. 

And yet, when at last the watchers in the European States saw the starrise, an hour later, it is true, but no larger than it had been the nightbefore, there were still plenty awake to laugh at the mastermathematician--to take the danger as if it had passed. 

But hereafter the laughter ceased. The star grew--it grew with a terriblesteadiness hour after hour, a little larger each hour, a little nearerthe midnight zenith, and brighter and brighter, until it had turned nightinto a second day. Had it come straight to the earth instead of in acurved path, had it lost no velocity to Jupiter, it must have leapt theintervening gulf in a day; but as it was, it took five days altogether tocome by our planet. The next night it had become a third the size of themoon before it set to English eyes, and the thaw was assured. It rose overAmerica near the size of the moon, but blinding white to look at, and_hot_; and a breath of hot wind blew now with its rising andgathering strength, and in Virginia, and Brazil, and down the St. Lawrencevalley, it shone intermittently through a driving reek of thunder-clouds, flickering violet lightning, and hail unprecedented. In Manitoba was athaw and devastating floods. And upon all the mountains of the earth thesnow and ice began to melt that night, and all the rivers coming out ofhigh country flowed thick and turbid, and soon--in their upper reaches--with swirling trees and the bodies of beasts and men. They rose steadily, steadily in the ghostly brilliance, and came trickling over their banks atlast, behind the flying population of their valleys. 

And along the coast of Argentina and up the South Atlantic the tides werehigher than had ever been in the memory of man, and the storms drove thewaters in many cases scores of miles inland, drowning whole cities. And sogreat grew the heat during the night that the rising of the sun was likethe coming of a shadow. The earthquakes began and grew until all downAmerica from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn, hillsides were sliding, fissures were opening, and houses and walls crumbling to destruction. Thewhole side of Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast convulsion, and a tumult oflava poured out so high and broad and swift and liquid that in one day itreached the sea. 

So the star, with the wan moon in its wake, marched across the Pacific, trailed the thunder-storms like the hem of a robe, and the growing tidalwave that toiled behind it, frothing and eager, poured over island andisland and swept them clear of men: until that wave came at last--in ablinding light and with the breath of a furnace, swift and terrible itcame--a wall of water, fifty feet high, roaring hungrily, upon the longcoasts of Asia, and swept inland across the plains of China. For a spacethe star, hotter now and larger and brighter than the sun in its strength, showed with pitiless brilliance the wide and populous country; towns andvillages with their pagodas and trees, roads, wide cultivated fields, millions of sleepless people staring in helpless terror at theincandescent sky; and then, low and growing, came the murmur of the flood. And thus it was with millions of men that night--a flight nowhither, withlimbs heavy with heat and breath fierce and scant, and the flood like awall swift and white behind. And then death. 

China was lit glowing white, but over Japan and Java and all the islandsof Eastern Asia the great star was a ball of dull red fire because of thesteam and smoke and ashes the volcanoes were spouting forth to salute itscoming. Above was the lava, hot gases and ash, and below the seethingfloods, and the whole earth swayed and rumbled with the earthquake shocks. Soon the immemorial snows of Thibet and the Himalaya were melting andpouring down by ten million deepening converging channels upon the plainsof Burmah and Hindostan. The tangled summits of the Indian jungles wereaflame in a thousand places, and below the hurrying waters around thestems were dark objects that still struggled feebly and reflected theblood-red tongues of fire. And in a rudderless confusion a multitude ofmen and women fled down the broad river-ways to that one last hope ofmen--the open sea. 

Larger grew the star, and larger, hotter, and brighter with a terribleswiftness now. The tropical ocean had lost its phosphorescence, and thewhirling steam rose in ghostly wreaths from the black waves that plungedincessantly, speckled with storm-tossed ships. 

And then came a wonder. It seemed to those who in Europe watched for therising of the star that the world must have ceased its rotation. In athousand open spaces of down and upland the people who had fled thitherfrom the floods and the falling houses and sliding slopes of hill watchedfor that rising in vain. Hour followed hour through a terrible suspense, and the star rose not. Once again men set their eyes upon the oldconstellations they had counted lost to them for ever. In England it washot and clear overhead, though the ground quivered perpetually, but in thetropics, Sirius and Capella and Aldebaran showed through a veil of steam. And when at last the great star rose near ten hours late, the sun roseclose upon it, and in the centre of its white heart was a disc of black. 

Over Asia it was the star had begun to fall behind the movement of thesky, and then suddenly, as it hung over India, its light had been veiled. All the plain of India from the mouth of the Indus to the mouths of theGanges was a shallow waste of shining water that night, out of which rosetemples and palaces, mounds and hills, black with people. Every minaretwas a clustering mass of people, who fell one by one into the turbidwaters, as heat and terror overcame them. The whole land seemed a-wailing, and suddenly there swept a shadow across that furnace of despair, and abreath of cold wind, and a gathering of clouds, out of the cooling air. Men looking up, near blinded, at the star, saw that a black disc wascreeping across the light. It was the moon, coming between the star andthe earth. And even as men cried to God at this respite, out of the Eastwith a strange inexplicable swiftness sprang the sun. And then star, sun, and moon rushed together across the heavens. 

So it was that presently to the European watchers star and sun rose closeupon each other, drove headlong for a space and then slower, and at lastcame to rest, star and sun merged into one glare of flame at the zenith ofthe sky. The moon no longer eclipsed the star but was lost to sight in thebrilliance of the sky. And though those who were still alive regarded itfor the most part with that dull stupidity that hunger, fatigue, heat anddespair engender, there were still men who could perceive the meaning ofthese signs. Star and earth had been at their nearest, had swung about oneanother, and the star had passed. Already it was receding, swifter andswifter, in the last stage of its headlong journey downward into the sun. 

And then the clouds gathered, blotting out the vision of the sky, thethunder and lightning wove a garment round the world; all over the earthwas such a downpour of rain as men had never before seen, and where thevolcanoes flared red against the cloud canopy there descended torrents ofmud. Everywhere the waters were pouring off the land, leaving mud-siltedruins, and the earth littered like a storm-worn beach with all that hadfloated, and the dead bodies of the men and brutes, its children. For daysthe water streamed off the land, sweeping away soil and trees and housesin the way, and piling huge dykes and scooping out Titanic gullies overthe country-side. Those were the days of darkness that followed the starand the heat. All through them, and for many weeks and months, theearthquakes continued. 

But the star had passed, and men, hunger-driven and gathering courage onlyslowly, might creep back to their ruined cities, buried granaries, andsodden fields. Such few ships as had escaped the storms of that time camestunned and shattered and sounding their way cautiously through the newmarks and shoals of once familiar ports. And as the storms subsided menperceived that everywhere the days were hotter than of yore, and the sunlarger, and the moon, shrunk to a third of its former size, took nowfourscore days between its new and new. 

But of the new brotherhood that grew presently among men, of the saving oflaws and books and machines, of the strange change that had come overIceland and Greenland and the shores of Baffin's Bay, so that the sailorscoming there presently found them green and gracious, and could scarcebelieve their eyes, this story does not tell. Nor of the movement ofmankind, now that the earth was hotter, northward and southward towardsthe poles of the earth. It concerns itself only with the coming and thepassing of the star. 

The Martian astronomers--for there are astronomers on Mars, although theyare very different beings from men--were naturally profoundly interestedby these things. They saw them from their own standpoint of course. "Considering the mass and temperature of the missile that was flungthrough our solar system into the sun, " one wrote, "it is astonishing whata little damage the earth, which it missed so narrowly, has sustained. Allthe familiar continental markings and the masses of the seas remainintact, and indeed the only difference seems to be a shrinkage of thewhite discolouration (supposed to be frozen water) round either pole. "Which only shows how small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem at adistance of a few million miles. 

 XXI. 

 THE MAN WHO COULD WORK MIRACLES. 

 A PANTOUM IN PROSE. 

It is doubtful whether the gift was innate. For my own part, I think itcame to him suddenly. Indeed, until he was thirty he was a sceptic, anddid not believe in miraculous powers. And here, since it is the mostconvenient place, I must mention that he was a little man, and had eyes ofa hot brown, very erect red hair, a moustache with ends that he twistedup, and freckles. His name was George McWhirter Fotheringay--not the sortof name by any means to lead to any expectation of miracles--and he wasclerk at Gomshott's. He was greatly addicted to assertive argument. It waswhile he was asserting the impossibility of miracles that he had his firstintimation of his extraordinary powers. This particular argument was beingheld in the bar of the Long Dragon, and Toddy Beamish was conducting theopposition by a monotonous but effective "So _you_ say, " that droveMr. Fotheringay to the very limit of his patience. 

There were present, besides these two, a very dusty cyclist, landlord Cox, and Miss Maybridge, the perfectly respectable and rather portly barmaid ofthe Dragon. Miss Maybridge was standing with her back to Mr. Fotheringay, washing glasses; the others were watching him, more or less amused by thepresent ineffectiveness of the assertive method. Goaded by the TorresVedras tactics of Mr. Beamish, Mr. Fotheringay determined to make anunusual rhetorical effort. "Looky here, Mr. Beamish, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "Let us clearly understand what a miracle is. It's somethingcontrariwise to the course of nature, done by power of will, somethingwhat couldn't happen without being specially willed. "

"So _you_ say, " said Mr. Beamish, repulsing him. 

Mr. Fotheringay appealed to the cyclist, who had hitherto been a silentauditor, and received his assent--given with a hesitating cough and aglance at Mr. Beamish. The landlord would express no opinion, and Mr. Fotheringay, returning to Mr. Beamish, received the unexpected concessionof a qualified assent to his definition of a miracle. 

"For instance, " said Mr. Fotheringay, greatly encouraged. "Here would be amiracle. That lamp, in the natural course of nature, couldn't burn likethat upsy-down, could it, Beamish?"

"_You_ say it couldn't, " said Beamish. 

"And you?" said Fotheringay. "You don't mean to say--eh?"

"No, " said Beamish reluctantly. "No, it couldn't. "

"Very well, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "Then here comes someone, as it mightbe me, along here, and stands as it might be here, and says to that lamp, as I might do, collecting all my will--Turn upsy-down without breaking, and go on burning steady, and--Hullo!"

It was enough to make anyone say "Hullo!" The impossible, the incredible, was visible to them all. The lamp hung inverted in the air, burningquietly with its flame pointing down. It was as solid, as indisputable asever a lamp was, the prosaic common lamp of the Long Dragon bar. 

Mr. Fotheringay stood with an extended forefinger and the knitted brows ofone anticipating a catastrophic smash. The cyclist, who was sitting nextthe lamp, ducked and jumped across the bar. Everybody jumped, more orless. Miss Maybridge turned and screamed. For nearly three seconds thelamp remained still. A faint cry of mental distress came from Mr. Fotheringay. "I can't keep it up, " he said, "any longer. " He staggeredback, and the inverted lamp suddenly flared, fell against the corner ofthe bar, bounced aside, smashed upon the floor, and went out. 

It was lucky it had a metal receiver, or the whole place would have beenin a blaze. Mr. Cox was the first to speak, and his remark, shorn ofneedless excrescences, was to the effect that Fotheringay was a fool. Fotheringay was beyond disputing even so fundamental a proposition asthat! He was astonished beyond measure at the thing that had occurred. Thesubsequent conversation threw absolutely no light on the matter so far asFotheringay was concerned; the general opinion not only followed Mr. Coxvery closely but very vehemently. Everyone accused Fotheringay of a sillytrick, and presented him to himself as a foolish destroyer of comfort andsecurity. His mind was in a tornado of perplexity, he was himself inclinedto agree with them, and he made a remarkably ineffectual opposition to theproposal of his departure. 

He went home flushed and heated, coat-collar crumpled, eyes smarting, andears red. He watched each of the ten street lamps nervously as he passedit. It was only when he found himself alone in his little bedroom inChurch Row that he was able to grapple seriously with his memories of theoccurrence, and ask, "What on earth happened?"

He had removed his coat and boots, and was sitting on the bed with hishands in his pockets repeating the text of his defence for the seventeenthtime, "I didn't want the confounded thing to upset, " when it occurred tohim that at the precise moment he had said the commanding words he hadinadvertently willed the thing he said, and that when he had seen the lampin the air he had felt that it depended on him to maintain it therewithout being clear how this was to be done. He had not a particularlycomplex mind, or he might have stuck for a time at that "inadvertentlywilled, " embracing, as it does, the abstrusest problems of voluntaryaction; but as it was, the idea came to him with a quite acceptablehaziness. And from that, following, as I must admit, no clear logicalpath, he came to the test of experiment. 

He pointed resolutely to his candle and collected his mind, though he felthe did a foolish thing. "Be raised up, " he said. But in a second thatfeeling vanished. The candle was raised, hung in the air one giddy moment, and as Mr. Fotheringay gasped, fell with a smash on his toilet-table, leaving him in darkness save for the expiring glow of its wick. 

For a time Mr. Fotheringay sat in the darkness, perfectly still. "It didhappen, after all, " he said. "And 'ow _I'm_ to explain it I_don't_ know. " He sighed heavily, and began feeling in his pocketsfor a match. He could find none, and he rose and groped about thetoilet-table. "I wish I had a match, " he said. He resorted to his coat, and there was none there, and then it dawned upon him that miracles werepossible even with matches. He extended a hand and scowled at it in thedark. "Let there be a match in that hand, " he said. He felt some lightobject fall across his palm and his fingers closed upon a match. 

After several ineffectual attempts to light this, he discovered it was asafety match. He threw it down, and then it occurred to him that he mighthave willed it lit. He did, and perceived it burning in the midst of histoilet-table mat. He caught it up hastily, and it went out. His perceptionof possibilities enlarged, and he felt for and replaced the candle in itscandlestick. "Here! _you_ be lit, " said Mr. Fotheringay, andforthwith the candle was flaring, and he saw a little black hole in thetoilet-cover, with a wisp of smoke rising from it. For a time he staredfrom this to the little flame and back, and then looked up and met his owngaze in the looking-glass. By this help he communed with himself insilence for a time. 

"How about miracles now?" said Mr. Fotheringay at last, addressing hisreflection. 

The subsequent meditations of Mr. Fotheringay were of a severe butconfused description. So far, he could see it was a case of pure willingwith him. The nature of his experiences so far disinclined him for anyfurther experiments, at least until he had reconsidered them. But helifted a sheet of paper, and turned a glass of water pink and then green, and he created a snail, which he miraculously annihilated, and got himselfa miraculous new tooth-brush. Somewhere in the small hours he had reachedthe fact that his will-power must be of a particularly rare and pungentquality, a fact of which he had indeed had inklings before, but no certainassurance. The scare and perplexity of his first discovery was nowqualified by pride in this evidence of singularity and by vagueintimations of advantage. He became aware that the church clock wasstriking one, and as it did not occur to him that his daily duties atGomshott's might be miraculously dispensed with, he resumed undressing, inorder to get to bed without further delay. As he struggled to get hisshirt over his head, he was struck with a brilliant idea. "Let me be inbed, " he said, and found himself so. "Undressed, " he stipulated; and, finding the sheets cold, added hastily, "and in my nightshirt--ho, in anice soft woollen nightshirt. Ah!" he said with immense enjoyment. "Andnow let me be comfortably asleep... "

He awoke at his usual hour and was pensive all through breakfast-time, wondering whether his over-night experience might not be a particularlyvivid dream. At length his mind turned again to cautious experiments. Forinstance, he had three eggs for breakfast; two his landlady had supplied, good, but shoppy, and one was a delicious fresh goose-egg, laid, cooked, and served by his extraordinary will. He hurried off to Gomshott's in astate of profound but carefully concealed excitement, and only rememberedthe shell of the third egg when his landlady spoke of it that night. Allday he could do no work because of this astonishing new self-knowledge, but this caused him no inconvenience, because he made up for itmiraculously in his last ten minutes. 

As the day wore on his state of mind passed from wonder to elation, albeitthe circumstances of his dismissal from the Long Dragon were stilldisagreeable to recall, and a garbled account of the matter that hadreached his colleagues led to some badinage. It was evident he must becareful how he lifted frangible articles, but in other ways his giftpromised more and more as he turned it over in his mind. He intended amongother things to increase his personal property by unostentatious acts ofcreation. He called into existence a pair of very splendid diamond studs, and hastily annihilated them again as young Gomshott came across thecounting-house to his desk. He was afraid young Gomshott might wonder howhe had come by them. He saw quite clearly the gift required caution andwatchfulness in its exercise, but so far as he could judge thedifficulties attending its mastery would be no greater than those he hadalready faced in the study of cycling. It was that analogy, perhaps, quiteas much as the feeling that he would be unwelcome in the Long Dragon, thatdrove him out after supper into the lane beyond the gasworks, to rehearsea few miracles in private. 

There was possibly a certain want of originality in his attempts, for, apart from his will-power, Mr. Fotheringay was not a very exceptional man. The miracle of Moses' rod came to his mind, but the night was dark andunfavourable to the proper control of large miraculous snakes. Then herecollected the story of "Tannhäuser" that he had read on the back of thePhilharmonic programme. That seemed to him singularly attractive andharmless. He stuck his walking-stick--a very nice Poona-Penang lawyer--into the turf that edged the footpath, and commanded the dry wood toblossom. The air was immediately full of the scent of roses, and by meansof a match he saw for himself that this beautiful miracle was indeedaccomplished. His satisfaction was ended by advancing footsteps. Afraid ofa premature discovery of his powers, he addressed the blossoming stickhastily: "Go back. " What he meant was "Change back;" but of course he wasconfused. The stick receded at a considerable velocity, and incontinentlycame a cry of anger and a bad word from the approaching person. "Who areyou throwing brambles at, you fool?" cried a voice. "That got me on theshin. "

"I'm sorry, old chap, " said Mr. Fotheringay, and then, realising theawkward nature of the explanation, caught nervously at his moustache. Hesaw Winch, one of the three Immering constables, advancing. 

"What d'yer mean by it?" asked the constable. "Hullo! it's you, is it? Thegent that broke the lamp at the Long Dragon!"

"I don't mean anything by it, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "Nothing at all. "

"What d'yer do it for then?"

"Oh, bother!" said Mr. Fotheringay. 

"Bother indeed! D'yer know that stick hurt? What d'yer do it for, eh?"

For the moment Mr. Fotheringay could not think what he had done it for. His silence seemed to irritate Mr. Winch. "You've been assaulting thepolice, young man, this time. That's what _you_ done. "

"Look here, Mr. Winch, " said Mr. Fotheringay, annoyed and confused, "I'msorry, very. The fact is----"

"Well?"

He could think of no way but the truth. "I was working a miracle. " Hetried to speak in an off-hand way, but try as he would he couldn't. 

"Working a--! 'Ere, don't you talk rot. Working a miracle, indeed!Miracle! Well, that's downright funny! Why, you's the chap that don'tbelieve in miracles... Fact is, this is another of your silly conjuringtricks--that's what this is. Now, I tell you--"

But Mr. Fotheringay never heard what Mr. Winch was going to tell him. Herealised he had given himself away, flung his valuable secret to all thewinds of heaven. A violent gust of irritation swept him to action. Heturned on the constable swiftly and fiercely. "Here, " he said, "I've hadenough of this, I have! I'll show you a silly conjuring trick, I will! Goto Hades! Go, now!"

He was alone!

Mr. Fotheringay performed no more miracles that night, nor did he troubleto see what had become of his flowering stick. He returned to the town, scared and very quiet, and went to his bedroom. "Lord!" he said, "it's apowerful gift--an extremely powerful gift. I didn't hardly mean as much asthat. Not really... I wonder what Hades is like!"

He sat on the bed taking off his boots. Struck by a happy thought hetransferred the constable to San Francisco, and without any moreinterference with normal causation went soberly to bed. In the night hedreamt of the anger of Winch. 

The next day Mr. Fotheringay heard two interesting items of news. Someonehad planted a most beautiful climbing rose against the elder Mr. Gomshott's private house in the Lullaborough Road, and the river as far asRawling's Mill was to be dragged for Constable Winch. 

Mr. Fotheringay was abstracted and thoughtful all that day, and performedno miracles except certain provisions for Winch, and the miracle ofcompleting his day's work with punctual perfection in spite of all thebee-swarm of thoughts that hummed through his mind. And the extraordinaryabstraction and meekness of his manner was remarked by several people, andmade a matter for jesting. For the most part he was thinking of Winch. 

On Sunday evening he went to chapel, and oddly enough, Mr. Maydig, whotook a certain interest in occult matters, preached about "things that arenot lawful. " Mr. Fotheringay was not a regular chapelgoer, but the systemof assertive scepticism, to which I have already alluded, was now verymuch shaken. The tenor of the sermon threw an entirely new light on thesenovel gifts, and he suddenly decided to consult Mr. Maydig immediatelyafter the service. So soon as that was determined, he found himselfwondering why he had not done so before. 

Mr. Maydig, a lean, excitable man with quite remarkably long wrists andneck, was gratified at a request for a private conversation from a youngman whose carelessness in religious matters was a subject for generalremark in the town. After a few necessary delays, he conducted him to thestudy of the manse, which was contiguous to the chapel, seated himcomfortably, and, standing in front of a cheerful fire--his legs threw aRhodian arch of shadow on the opposite wall--requested Mr. Fotheringay tostate his business. 

At first Mr. Fotheringay was a little abashed, and found some difficultyin opening the matter. "You will scarcely believe me, Mr. Maydig, I amafraid"--and so forth for some time. He tried a question at last, andasked Mr. Maydig his opinion of miracles. 

Mr. Maydig was still saying "Well" in an extremely judicial tone, when Mr. Fotheringay interrupted again: "You don't believe, I suppose, that somecommon sort of person--like myself, for instance--as it might be sittinghere now, might have some sort of twist inside him that made him able todo things by his will. "

"It's possible, " said Mr. Maydig. "Something of the sort, perhaps, ispossible. "

"If I might make free with something here, I think I might show you by asort of experiment, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "Now, take that tobacco-jar onthe table, for instance. What I want to know is whether what I am going todo with it is a miracle or not. Just half a minute, Mr. Maydig, please. "

He knitted his brows, pointed to the tobacco-jar and said: "Be a bowl ofvi'lets. "

The tobacco-jar did as it was ordered. 

Mr. Maydig started violently at the change, and stood looking from thethaumaturgist to the bowl of flowers. He said nothing. Presently heventured to lean over the table and smell the violets; they werefresh-picked and very fine ones. Then he stared at Mr. Fotheringay again. 

"How did you do that?" he asked. 

Mr. Fotheringay pulled his moustache. "Just told it--and there you are. Isthat a miracle, or is it black art, or what is it? And what do you think'sthe matter with me? That's what I want to ask. "

"It's a most extraordinary occurrence. "

"And this day last week I knew no more that I could do things like thatthan you did. It came quite sudden. It's something odd about my will, Isuppose, and that's as far as I can see. "

"Is that--the only thing. Could you do other things besides that?"

"Lord, yes!" said Mr. Fotheringay. "Just anything. " He thought, andsuddenly recalled a conjuring entertainment he had seen. "Here!" hepointed, "change into a bowl of fish--no, not that--change into a glassbowl full of water with goldfish swimming in it. That's better! You seethat, Mr. Maydig?"

"It's astonishing. It's incredible. You are either a most extraordinary... But no----"

"I could change it into anything, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "Just anything. Here! be a pigeon, will you?"

In another moment a blue pigeon was fluttering round the room and makingMr. Maydig duck every time it came near him. "Stop there, will you?" saidMr. Fotheringay; and the pigeon hung motionless in the air. "I couldchange it back to a bowl of flowers, " he said, and after replacing thepigeon on the table worked that miracle. "I expect you will want your pipein a bit, " he said, and restored the tobacco-jar. 

Mr. Maydig had followed all these later changes in a sort of ejaculatorysilence. He stared at Mr. Fotheringay and in a very gingerly manner pickedup the tobacco-jar, examined it, replaced it on the table. "_Well_!"was the only expression of his feelings. 

"Now, after that it's easier to explain what I came about, " said Mr. Fotheringay; and proceeded to a lengthy and involved narrative of hisstrange experiences, beginning with the affair of the lamp in the LongDragon and complicated by persistent allusions to Winch. As he went on, the transient pride Mr. Maydig's consternation had caused passed away; hebecame the very ordinary Mr. Fotheringay of everyday intercourse again. Mr. Maydig listened intently, the tobacco-jar in his hand, and his bearingchanged also with the course of the narrative. Presently, while Mr. Fotheringay was dealing with the miracle of the third egg, the ministerinterrupted with a fluttering, extended hand. 

"It is possible, " he said. "It is credible. It is amazing, of course, butit reconciles a number of amazing difficulties. The power to work miraclesis a gift--a peculiar quality like genius or second sight; hitherto it hascome very rarely and to exceptional people. But in this case... I havealways wondered at the miracles of Mahomet, and at Yogi's miracles, andthe miracles of Madame Blavatsky. But, of course--Yes, it is simply agift! It carries out so beautifully the arguments of that great thinker"--Mr. Maydig's voice sank--"his Grace the Duke of Argyll. Here we plumb someprofounder law--deeper than the ordinary laws of nature. Yes--yes. Go on. Go on!"

Mr. Fotheringay proceeded to tell of his misadventure with Winch, and Mr. Maydig, no longer overawed or scared, began to jerk his limbs about andinterject astonishment. "It's this what troubled me most, " proceeded Mr. Fotheringay; "it's this I'm most mijitly in want of advice for; of coursehe's at San Francisco--wherever San Francisco may be--but of course it'sawkward for both of us, as you'll see, Mr. Maydig. I don't see how he canunderstand what has happened, and I daresay he's scared and exasperatedsomething tremendous, and trying to get at me. I daresay he keeps onstarting off to come here. I send him back, by a miracle, every few hours, when I think of it. And, of course, that's a thing he won't be able tounderstand, and it's bound to annoy him; and, of course, if he takes aticket every time it will cost him a lot of money. I done the best I couldfor him, but, of course, it's difficult for him to put himself in myplace. I thought afterwards that his clothes might have got scorched, youknow--if Hades is all it's supposed to be--before I shifted him. In thatcase I suppose they'd have locked him up in San Francisco. Of course Iwilled him a new suit of clothes on him directly I thought of it. But, yousee, I'm already in a deuce of a tangle----"

Mr. Maydig looked serious. "I see you are in a tangle. Yes, it's adifficult position. How you are to end it... " He became diffuse andinconclusive. 

"However, we'll leave Winch for a little and discuss the larger question. I don't think this is a case of the black art or anything of the sort. Idon't think there is any taint of criminality about it at all, Mr. Fotheringay--none whatever, unless you are suppressing material facts. No, it's miracles--pure miracles--miracles, if I may say so, of the veryhighest class. "

He began to pace the hearthrug and gesticulate, while Mr. Fotheringay satwith his arm on the table and his head on his arm, looking worried. "Idon't see how I'm to manage about Winch, " he said. 

"A gift of working miracles--apparently a very powerful gift, " said Mr. Maydig, "will find a way about Winch--never fear. My dear sir, you are amost important man--a man of the most astonishing possibilities. Asevidence, for example! And in other ways, the things you may do... "

"Yes, _I've_ thought of a thing or two, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "But--some of the things came a bit twisty. You saw that fish at first? Wrongsort of bowl and wrong sort of fish. And I thought I'd ask someone. "

"A proper course, " said Mr. Maydig, "a very proper course--altogether theproper course. " He stopped and looked at Mr. Fotheringay. "It'spractically an unlimited gift. Let us test your powers, for instance. Ifthey really _are_ ... If they really are all they seem to be. "

And so, incredible as it may seem, in the study of the little house behindthe Congregational Chapel, on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 10, 1896, Mr. Fotheringay, egged on and inspired by Mr. Maydig, began to work miracles. The reader's attention is specially and definitely called to the date. Hewill object, probably has already objected, that certain points in thisstory are improbable, that if any things of the sort already described hadindeed occurred, they would have been in all the papers at that time. Thedetails immediately following he will find particularly hard to accept, because among other things they involve the conclusion that he or she, thereader in question, must have been killed in a violent and unprecedentedmanner more than a year ago. Now a miracle is nothing if not improbable, and as a matter of fact the reader _was_ killed in a violent andunprecedented manner in 1896. In the subsequent course of this story thatwill become perfectly clear and credible, as every right-minded andreasonable reader will admit. But this is not the place for the end of thestory, being but little beyond the hither side of the middle. And at firstthe miracles worked by Mr. Fotheringay were timid little miracles--littlethings with the cups and parlour fitments, as feeble as the miracles ofTheosophists, and, feeble as they were, they were received with awe by hiscollaborator. He would have preferred to settle the Winch business out ofhand, but Mr. Maydig would not let him. But after they had worked a dozenof these domestic trivialities, their sense of power grew, theirimagination began to show signs of stimulation, and their ambitionenlarged. Their first larger enterprise was due to hunger and thenegligence of Mrs. Minchin, Mr. Maydig's housekeeper. The meal to whichthe minister conducted Mr. Fotheringay was certainly ill-laid anduninviting as refreshment for two industrious miracle-workers; but theywere seated, and Mr. Maydig was descanting in sorrow rather than in angerupon his housekeeper's shortcomings, before it occurred to Mr. Fotheringaythat an opportunity lay before him. "Don't you think, Mr. Maydig, " hesaid, "if it isn't a liberty, _I_----"

"My dear Mr. Fotheringay! Of course! No--I didn't think. "

Mr. Fotheringay waved his hand. "What shall we have?" he said, in a large, inclusive spirit, and, at Mr. Maydig's order, revised the supper verythoroughly. "As for me, " he said, eyeing Mr. Maydig's selection, "I amalways particularly fond of a tankard of stout and a nice Welsh rarebit, and I'll order that. I ain't much given to Burgundy, " and forthwith stoutand Welsh rarebit promptly appeared at his command. They sat long at theirsupper, talking like equals, as Mr. Fotheringay presently perceived, witha glow of surprise and gratification, of all the miracles they wouldpresently do. "And, by-the-by, Mr. Maydig, " said Mr. Fotheringay, "I mightperhaps be able to help you--in a domestic way. "

"Don't quite follow, " said Mr. Maydig, pouring out a glass of miraculousold Burgundy. 

Mr. Fotheringay helped himself to a second Welsh rarebit out of vacancy, and took a mouthful. "I was thinking, " he said, "I might be able (_chum, chum_) to work (_chum, chum_) a miracle with Mrs. Minchin(_chum, chum_)--make her a better woman. "

Mr. Maydig put down the glass and looked doubtful. 

"She's----She strongly objects to interference, you know, Mr. Fotheringay. And--as a matter of fact--it's well past eleven and she'sprobably in bed and asleep. Do you think, on the whole----"

Mr. Fotheringay considered these objections. "I don't see that itshouldn't be done in her sleep. "

For a time Mr. Maydig opposed the idea, and then he yielded. Mr. Fotheringay issued his orders, and a little less at their ease, perhaps, the two gentlemen proceeded with their repast. Mr. Maydig was enlarging onthe changes he might expect in his housekeeper next day, with an optimism, that seemed even to Mr. Fotheringay's supper senses a little forced andhectic, when a series of confused noises from upstairs began. Their eyesexchanged interrogations, and Mr. Maydig left the room hastily. Mr. Fotheringay heard him calling up to his housekeeper and then his footstepsgoing softly up to her. 

In a minute or so the minister returned, his step light, his face radiant. "Wonderful!" he said, "and touching! Most touching!"

He began pacing the hearthrug. "A repentance--a most touching repentance--through the crack of the door. Poor woman! A most wonderful change! Shehad got up. She must have got up at once. She had got up out of her sleepto smash a private bottle of brandy in her box. And to confess it too!... But this gives us--it opens--a most amazing vista of possibilities. If wecan work this miraculous change in _her_... "

"The thing's unlimited seemingly, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "And about Mr. Winch----"

"Altogether unlimited. " And from the hearthrug Mr. Maydig, waving theWinch difficulty aside, unfolded a series of wonderful proposals--proposals he invented as he went along. 

Now what those proposals were does not concern the essentials of thisstory. Suffice it that they were designed in a spirit of infinitebenevolence, the sort of benevolence that used to be called post-prandial. Suffice it, too, that the problem of Winch remained unsolved. Nor is itnecessary to describe how far that series got to its fulfilment. Therewere astonishing changes. The small hours found Mr. Maydig and Mr. Fotheringay careering across the chilly market square under the stillmoon, in a sort of ecstasy of thaumaturgy, Mr. Maydig all flap andgesture, Mr. Fotheringay short and bristling, and no longer abashed at hisgreatness. They had reformed every drunkard in the Parliamentary division, changed all the beer and alcohol to water (Mr. Maydig had overruled Mr. Fotheringay on this point); they had, further, greatly improved therailway communication of the place, drained Flinder's swamp, improved thesoil of One Tree Hill, and cured the vicar's wart. And they were going tosee what could be done with the injured pier at South Bridge. "The place, "gasped Mr. Maydig, "won't be the same place to-morrow. How surprised andthankful everyone will be!" And just at that moment the church clockstruck three. 

"I say, " said Mr. Fotheringay, "that's three o'clock! I must be gettingback. I've got to be at business by eight. And besides, Mrs. Wimms----"

"We're only beginning, " said Mr. Maydig, full of the sweetness ofunlimited power. "We're only beginning. Think of all the good we're doing. When people wake----"

"But----, " said Mr. Fotheringay. 

Mr. Maydig gripped his arm suddenly. His eyes were bright and wild. "Mydear chap, " he said, "there's no hurry. Look"--he pointed to the moon atthe zenith--"Joshua!"

"Joshua?" said Mr. Fotheringay. 

"Joshua, " said Mr. Maydig. "Why not? Stop it. "

Mr. Fotheringay looked at the moon. 

"That's a bit tall, " he said, after a pause. 

"Why not?" said Mr. Maydig. "Of course it doesn't stop. You stop therotation of the earth, you know. Time stops. It isn't as if we were doingharm. "

"H'm!" said Mr. Fotheringay. "Well, " he sighed, "I'll try. Here!"

He buttoned up his jacket and addressed himself to the habitable globe, with as good an assumption of confidence as lay in his power. "Jest stoprotating, will you?" said Mr. Fotheringay. 

Incontinently he was flying head over heels through the air at the rate ofdozens of miles a minute. In spite of the innumerable circles he wasdescribing per second, he thought; for thought is wonderful--sometimes assluggish as flowing pitch, sometimes as instantaneous as light. He thoughtin a second, and willed. "Let me come down safe and sound. Whatever elsehappens, let me down safe and sound. "

He willed it only just in time, for his clothes, heated by his rapidflight through the air, were already beginning to singe. He came down witha forcible, but by no means injurious, bump in what appeared to be a moundof fresh-turned earth. A large mass of metal and masonry, extraordinarilylike the clock-tower in the middle of the market square, hit the earthnear him, ricochetted over him, and flew into stonework, bricks, andcement, like a bursting bomb. A hurtling cow hit one of the larger blocksand smashed like an egg. There was a crash that made all the most violentcrashes of his past life seem like the sound of falling dust, and this wasfollowed by a descending series of lesser crashes. A vast wind roaredthroughout earth and heaven, so that he could scarcely lift his head tolook. For a while he was too breathless and astonished even to see wherehe was or what had happened. And his first movement was to feel his headand reassure himself that his streaming hair was still his own. 

"Lord!" gasped Mr. Fotheringay, scarce able to speak for the gale, "I'vehad a squeak! What's gone wrong? Storms and thunder. And only a minute agoa fine night. It's Maydig set me on to this sort of thing. _What_ awind! If I go on fooling in this way I'm bound to have a thunderingaccident!... 

"Where's Maydig?

"What a confounded mess everything's in!"

He looked about him so far as his flapping jacket would permit. Theappearance of things was really extremely strange. "The sky's all rightanyhow, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "And that's about all that is all right. And even there it looks like a terrific gale coming up. But there's themoon overhead. Just as it was just now. Bright as midday. But as for therest----Where's the village? Where's--where's anything? And what on earthset this wind a-blowing? I didn't order no wind. "

Mr. Fotheringay struggled to get to his feet in vain, and after onefailure, remained on all fours, holding on. He surveyed the moonlit worldto leeward, with the tails of his jacket streaming over his head. "There'ssomething seriously wrong, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "And what it is--goodness knows. "

Far and wide nothing was visible in the white glare through the haze ofdust that drove before a screaming gale but tumbled masses of earth andheaps of inchoate ruins, no trees, no houses, no familiar shapes, only awilderness of disorder, vanishing at last into the darkness beneath thewhirling columns and streamers, the lightnings and thunderings of aswiftly rising storm. Near him in the livid glare was something that mightonce have been an elm-tree, a smashed mass of splinters, shivered fromboughs to base, and further a twisted mass of iron girders--only tooevidently the viaduct--rose out of the piled confusion. 

You see, when Mr. Fotheringay had arrested the rotation of the solidglobe, he had made no stipulation concerning the trifling movables uponits surface. And the earth spins so fast that the surface at its equatoris travelling at rather more than a thousand miles an hour, and in theselatitudes at more than half that pace. So that the village, and Mr. Maydig, and Mr. Fotheringay, and everybody and everything had been jerkedviolently forward at about nine miles per second--that is to say, muchmore violently than if they had been fired out of a cannon. And everyhuman being, every living creature, every house, and every tree--all theworld as we know it--had been so jerked and smashed and utterly destroyed. That was all. 

These things Mr. Fotheringay did not, of course, fully appreciate. But heperceived that his miracle had miscarried, and with that a great disgustof miracles came upon him. He was in darkness now, for the clouds hadswept together and blotted out his momentary glimpse of the moon, and theair was full of fitful struggling tortured wraiths of hail. A greatroaring of wind and waters filled earth and sky, and peering under hishand through the dust and sleet to windward, he saw by the play of thelightnings a vast wall of water pouring towards him. 

"Maydig!" screamed Mr. Fotheringay's feeble voice amid the elementaluproar. "Here!--Maydig!

"Stop!" cried Mr. Fotheringay to the advancing water. "Oh, for goodness'sake, stop!

"Just a moment, " said Mr. Fotheringay to the lightnings and thunder. "Stopjest a moment while I collect my thoughts... And now what shall I do?" hesaid. "What _shall_ I do? Lord! I wish Maydig was about. "

"I know, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "And for goodness' sake let's have itright _this_ time. "

He remained on all fours, leaning against the wind, very intent to haveeverything right. 

"Ah!" he said. "Let nothing what I'm going to order happen until I say'Off!'... Lord! I wish I'd thought of that before!"

He lifted his little voice against the whirlwind, shouting louder andlouder in the vain desire to hear himself speak. "Now then!--here goes!Mind about that what I said just now. In the first place, when all I'vegot to say is done, let me lose my miraculous power, let my will becomejust like anybody else's will, and all these dangerous miracles bestopped. I don't like them. I'd rather I didn't work 'em. Ever so much. That's the first thing. And the second is--let me be back just before themiracles begin; let everything be just as it was before that blessed lampturned up. It's a big job, but it's the last. Have you got it? No moremiracles, everything as it was--me back in the Long Dragon just before Idrank my half-pint. That's it! Yes. "

He dug his fingers into the mould, closed his eyes, and said "Off!"

Everything became perfectly still. He perceived that he was standingerect. 

"So _you_ say, " said a voice. 

He opened his eyes. He was in the bar of the Long Dragon, arguing aboutmiracles with Toddy Beamish. He had a vague sense of some great thingforgotten that instantaneously passed. You see that, except for the lossof his miraculous powers, everything was back as it had been, his mind andmemory therefore were now just as they had been at the time when thisstory began. So that he knew absolutely nothing of all that is told here--knows nothing of all that is told here to this day. And among otherthings, of course, he still did not believe in miracles. 

"I tell you that miracles, properly speaking, can't possibly happen, " hesaid, "whatever you like to hold. And I'm prepared to prove it up to thehilt. "

"That's what _you_ think, " said Toddy Beamish, and "Prove it if youcan. "

"Looky here, Mr. Beamish, " said Mr. Fotheringay. "Let us clearlyunderstand what a miracle is. It's something contrariwise to the course ofnature done by power of Will... "

 XXII. 

 A VISION OF JUDGMENT. 

I. 

Bru-a-a-a. 

I listened, not understanding. 

Wa-ra-ra-ra. 

"Good Lord!" said I, still only half awake. "What an infernal shindy!"

Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra Ta-ra-rra-ra. 

"It's enough, " said I, "to wake----" and stopped short. Where was I?

Ta-rra-rara--louder and louder. 

"It's either some new invention----"

Toora-toora-toora! Deafening!

"No, " said I, speaking loud in order to hear myself. "That's the LastTrump. "

Tooo-rraa!

II. 

The last note jerked me out of my grave like a hooked minnow. 

I saw my monument (rather a mean little affair, and I wished I knew who'ddone it), and the old elm tree and the sea view vanished like a puff ofsteam, and then all about me--a multitude no man could number, nations, tongues, kingdoms, peoples--children of all the ages, in an amphitheatralspace as vast as the sky. And over against us, seated on a throne ofdazzling white cloud, the Lord God and all the host of his angels. Irecognised Azrael by his darkness and Michael by his sword, and the greatangel who had blown the trumpet stood with the trumpet still half raised. 

III. 

"Prompt, " said the little man beside me. "Very prompt. Do you see theangel with the book?"

He was ducking and craning his head about to see over and under andbetween the souls that crowded round us. "Everybody's here, " he said. "Everybody. And now we shall know--

"There's Darwin, " he said, going off at a tangent. "_He'll_ catch it!And there--you see?--that tall, important-looking man trying to catch theeye of the Lord God, that's the Duke. But there's a lot of people onedoesn't know. 

"Oh! there's Priggles, the publisher. I have always wondered aboutprinters' overs. Priggles was a clever man ... But we shall know now--evenabout him. 

"I shall hear all that. I shall get most of the fun before ... _My_letter's S. "

He drew the air in between his teeth. 

"Historical characters, too. See? That's Henry the Eighth. There'll be agood bit of evidence. Oh, damn! He's Tudor. "

He lowered his voice. "Notice this chap, just in front of us, all coveredwith hair. Paleolithic, you know. And there again--"

But I did not heed him, because I was looking at the Lord God. 

IV. 

"Is this _all_?" asked the Lord God. 

The angel at the book--it was one of countless volumes, like the BritishMuseum Reading-room Catalogue, glanced at us and seemed to count us in theinstant. 

"That's all, " he said, and added: "It was, O God, a very little planet. "

The eyes of God surveyed us. 

"Let us begin, " said the Lord God. 

V. 

The angel opened the book and read a name. It was a name full of A's, andthe echoes of it came back out of the uttermost parts of space. I did notcatch it clearly, because the little man beside me said, in a sharp jerk, "_What's_ that?" It sounded like "Ahab" to me; but it could not havebeen the Ahab of Scripture. 

Instantly a small black figure was lifted up to a puffy cloud at the veryfeet of God. It was a stiff little figure, dressed in rich outlandishrobes and crowned, and it folded its arms and scowled. 

"Well?" said God, looking down at him. 

We were privileged to hear the reply, and indeed the acoustic propertiesof the place were marvellous. 

"I plead guilty, " said the little figure. 

"Tell them what you have done, " said the Lord God. 

"I was a king, " said the little figure, "a great king, and I was lustfuland proud and cruel. I made wars, I devastated countries, I built palaces, and the mortar was the blood of men. Hear, O God, the witnesses againstme, calling to you for vengeance. Hundreds and thousands of witnesses. " Hewaved his hands towards us. "And worse! I took a prophet--one of yourprophets----"

"One of my prophets, " said the Lord God. 

"And because he would not bow to me, I tortured him for four days andnights, and in the end he died. I did more, O God, I blasphemed. I robbedyou of your honours----"

"Robbed me of my honours, " said the Lord God. 

"I caused myself to be worshipped in your stead. No evil was there but Ipractised it; no cruelty wherewith I did not stain my soul. And at lastyou smote me, O God!"

God raised his eyebrows slightly. 

"And I was slain in battle. And so I stand before you, meet for yournethermost Hell! Out of your greatness daring no lies, daring no pleas, but telling the truth of my iniquities before all mankind. "

He ceased. His face I saw distinctly, and it seemed to me white andterrible and proud and strangely noble. I thought of Milton's Satan. 

"Most of that is from the Obelisk, " said the Recording Angel, finger onpage. 

"It is, " said the Tyrannous Man, with a faint touch of surprise. 

Then suddenly God bent forward and took this man in his hand, and held himup on his palm as if to see him better. He was just a little dark strokein the middle of God's palm. 

"_Did_ he do all this?" said the Lord God. 

The Recording Angel flattened his book with his hand. 

"In a way, " said the Recording Angel, carelessly. Now when I looked againat the little man his face had changed in a very curious manner. He waslooking at the Recording Angel with a strange apprehension in his eyes, and one hand fluttered to his mouth. Just the movement of a muscle or so, and all that dignity of defiance was gone. 

"Read, " said the Lord God. 

And the angel read, explaining very carefully and fully all the wickednessof the Wicked Man. It was quite an intellectual treat. --A little "daring"in places, I thought, but of course Heaven has its privileges... 

VI. 

Everybody was laughing. Even the prophet of the Lord whom the Wicked Manhad tortured had a smile on his face. The Wicked Man was really such apreposterous little fellow. 

"And then, " read the Recording Angel, with a smile that set us all agog, "one day, when he was a little irascible from over-eating, he--"

"Oh, not _that_, " cried the Wicked Man, "nobody knew of _that_. 

"It didn't happen, " screamed the Wicked Man. "I was bad--I was really bad. Frequently bad, but there was nothing so silly--so absolutely silly--"

The angel went on reading. 

"O God!" cried the Wicked Man. "Don't let them know that! I'll repent!I'll apologise... "

The Wicked Man on God's hand began to dance and weep. Suddenly shameovercame him. He made a wild rush to jump off the ball of God's littlefinger, but God stopped him by a dexterous turn of the wrist. Then he madea rush for the gap between hand and thumb, but the thumb closed. And allthe while the angel went on reading--reading. The Wicked Man rushed to andfro across God's palm, and then suddenly turned about and fled up thesleeve of God. 

I expected God would turn him out, but the mercy of God is infinite. 

The Recording Angel paused. 

"Eh?" said the Recording Angel. 

"Next, " said God, and before the Recording Angel could call the name ahairy creature in filthy rags stood upon God's palm. 

VII. 

"Has God got Hell up his sleeve then?" said the little man beside me. 

"_Is_ there a Hell?" I asked. 

"If you notice, " he said--he peered between the feet of the great angels--"there's no particular indication of a Celestial City. "

"'Ssh!" said a little woman near us, scowling. "Hear this blessed Saint!"

VIII. 

"He was Lord of the Earth, but I was the prophet of the God of Heaven, "cried the Saint, "and all the people marvelled at the sign. For I, O God, knew of the glories of thy Paradise. No pain, no hardship, gashing withknives, splinters thrust under my nails, strips of flesh flayed off, allfor the glory and honour of God. "

God smiled. 

"And at last I went, I in my rags and sores, smelling of my holydiscomforts----"

Gabriel laughed abruptly. 

"And lay outside his gates, as a sign, as a wonder----"

"As a perfect nuisance, " said the Recording Angel, and began to read, heedless of the fact that the saint was still speaking of the gloriouslyunpleasant things he had done that Paradise might be his. 

And behold, in that book the record of the Saint also was a revelation, amarvel. 

It seemed not ten seconds before the Saint also was rushing to and froover the great palm of God. Not ten seconds! And at last he also shriekedbeneath that pitiless and cynical exposition, and fled also, even as theWicked Man had fled, into the shadow of the sleeve. And it was permittedus to see into the shadow of the sleeve. And the two sat side by side, stark of all delusions, in the shadow of the robe of God's charity, likebrothers. 

And thither also I fled in my turn. 

IX. 

"And now, " said God, as he shook us out of his sleeve upon the planet hehad given us to live upon, the planet that whirled about green Sirius fora sun, "now that you understand me and each other a little better, ... Tryagain. "

Then he and his great angels turned themselves about and suddenly hadvanished... 

The Throne had vanished. 

All about me was a beautiful land, more beautiful than any I had ever seenbefore--waste, austere, and wonderful; and all about me were theenlightened souls of men in new clean bodies... 

 XXIII. 

 JIMMY GOGGLES THE GOD. 

"It isn't every one who's been a god, " said the sunburnt man. "But it'shappened to me--among other things. "

I intimated my sense of his condescension. 

"It don't leave much for ambition, does it?" said the sunburnt man. 

"I was one of those men who were saved from the _Ocean Pioneer_. Gummy! how time flies! It's twenty years ago. I doubt if you'll rememberanything of the _Ocean Pioneer_?"

The name was familiar, and I tried to recall when and where I had read it. The _Ocean Pioneer_? "Something about gold dust, " I said vaguely, "but the precise--"

"That's it, " he said. "In a beastly little channel she hadn't no businessin--dodging pirates. It was before they'd put the kybosh on that business. And there'd been volcanoes or something and all the rocks was wrong. There's places about by Soona where you fair have to follow the rocksabout to see where they're going next. Down she went in twenty fathomsbefore you could have dealt for whist, with fifty thousand pounds worth ofgold aboard, it was said, in one form or another. "

"Survivors?"

"Three. "

"I remember the case now, " I said. "There was something about salvage----"

But at the word salvage the sunburnt man exploded into language soextraordinarily horrible that I stopped aghast. He came down to moreordinary swearing, and pulled himself up abruptly. "Excuse me, " he said, "but--salvage!"

He leant over towards me. "I was in that job, " he said. "Tried to makemyself a rich man, and got made a god instead. I've got my feelings----

"It ain't all jam being a god, " said the sunburnt man, and for some timeconversed by means of such pithy but unprogressive axioms. At last he tookup his tale again. 

"There was me, " said the sunburnt man, "and a seaman named Jacobs, andAlways, the mate of the _Ocean Pioneer_. And him it was that set thewhole thing going. I remember him now, when we was in the jolly-boat, suggesting it all to our minds just by one sentence. He was a wonderfulhand at suggesting things. 'There was forty thousand pounds, ' he said, 'onthat ship, and it's for me to say just where she went down. ' It didn'tneed much brains to tumble to that. And he was the leader from the firstto the last. He got hold of the Sanderses and their brig; they werebrothers, and the brig was the _Pride of Banya_, and he it was boughtthe diving dress--a second-hand one with a compressed air apparatusinstead of pumping. He'd have done the diving too, if it hadn't made himsick going down. And the salvage people were mucking about with a charthe'd cooked up, as solemn as could be, at Starr Race, a hundred and twentymiles away. 

"I can tell you we was a happy lot aboard that brig, jokes and drink andbright hopes all the time. It all seemed so neat and clean andstraightforward, and what rough chaps call a 'cert. ' And we used tospeculate how the other blessed lot, the proper salvagers, who'd startedtwo days before us, were getting on, until our sides fairly ached. We allmessed together in the Sanderses' cabin--it was a curious crew, allofficers and no men--and there stood the diving-dress waiting its turn. Young Sanders was a humorous sort of chap, and there certainly wassomething funny in the confounded thing's great fat head and its stare, and he made us see it too. 'Jimmy Goggles, ' he used to call it, and talkto it like a Christian. Asked if he was married, and how Mrs. Goggles was, and all the little Goggleses. Fit to make you split. And every blessed dayall of us used to drink the health of Jimmy Goggles in rum, and unscrewhis eye and pour a glass of rum in him, until, instead of that nastymackintosheriness, he smelt as nice in his inside as a cask of rum. It wasjolly times we had in those days, I can tell you--little suspecting, poorchaps! what was a-coming. 

"We weren't going to throw away our chances by any blessed hurry, youknow, and we spent a whole day sounding our way towards where the_Ocean Pioneer_ had gone down, right between two chunks of ropy greyrock--lava rocks that rose nearly out of the water. We had to lay offabout half a mile to get a safe anchorage, and there was a thundering rowwho should stop on board. And there she lay just as she had gone down, sothat you could see the top of the masts that was still standing perfectlydistinctly. The row ended in all coming in the boat. I went down in thediving-dress on Friday morning directly it was light. 

"What a surprise it was! I can see it all now quite distinctly. It was aqueer-looking place, and the light was just coming. People over here thinkevery blessed place in the tropics is a flat shore and palm-trees andsurf, bless 'em! This place, for instance, wasn't a bit that way. Notcommon rocks they were, undermined by waves; but great curved banks likeironwork cinder heaps, with green slime below, and thorny shrubs andthings just waving upon them here and there, and the water glassy calm andclear, and showing you a kind of dirty gray-black shine, with huge flaringred-brown weeds spreading motionless, and crawling and darting thingsgoing through it. And far away beyond the ditches and pools and the heapswas a forest on the mountain flank, growing again after the fires andcinder showers of the last eruption. And the other way forest, too, and akind of broken--what is it?--amby-theatre of black and rusty cindersrising out of it all, and the sea in a kind of bay in the middle. 

"The dawn, I say, was just coming, and there wasn't much colour aboutthings, and not a human being but ourselves anywhere in sight up or downthe channel. Except the _Pride of Banya_, lying out beyond a lump ofrocks towards the line of the sea. 

"Not a human being in sight, " he repeated, and paused. 

"_I_ don't know where they came from, not a bit. And we were feelingso safe that we were all alone that poor young Sanders was a-singing. Iwas in Jimmy Goggles, all except the helmet. 'Easy, ' says Always, 'there'sher mast. ' And after I'd had just one squint over the gunwale, I caught upthe bogey, and almost tipped out as old Sanders brought the boat round. When the windows were screwed and everything was all right, I shut thevalve from the air-belt in order to help my sinking, and jumped overboard, feet foremost--for we hadn't a ladder. I left the boat pitching, and allof them staring down into water after me, as my head sank down into theweeds and blackness that lay about the mast. I suppose nobody, not themost cautious chap in the world, would have bothered about a look-out atsuch a desolate place. It stunk of solitude. 

"Of course you must understand that I was a greenhorn at diving. None ofus were divers. We'd had to muck about with the thing to get the way ofit, and this was the first time I'd been deep. It feels damnable. Yourears hurt beastly. I don't know if you've ever hurt yourself yawning orsneezing, but it takes you like that, only ten times worse. And a painover the eyebrows here--splitting--and a feeling like influenza in thehead. And it isn't all heaven in your lungs and things. And going downfeels like the beginning of a lift, only it keeps on. And you can't turnyour head to see what's above you, and you can't get a fair squint atwhat's happening to your feet without bending down something painful. Andbeing deep it was dark, let alone the blackness of the ashes and mud thatformed the bottom. It was like going down out of the dawn back into thenight, so to speak. 

"The mast came up like a ghost out of the black, and then a lot of fishes, and then a lot of flapping red seaweed, and then whack I came with a kindof dull bang on the deck of the _Ocean Pioneer_, and the fishes thathad been feeding on the dead rose about me like a swarm of flies from roadstuff in summer-time. I turned on the compressed air again--for the suitwas a bit thick and mackintoshery after all, in spite of the rum--andstood recovering myself. It struck coolish down there, and that helpedtake off the stuffiness a bit. "

"When I began to feel easier, I started looking about me. It was anextraordinary sight. Even the light was extraordinary, a kind ofreddy-coloured twilight, on account of the streamers of seaweed thatfloated up on either side of the ship. And far overhead just a moony, deep green blue. The deck of the ship, except for a slight list tostarboard, was level, and lay all dark and long between the weeds, clearexcept where the masts had snapped when she rolled, and vanishing intoblack night towards the forecastle. There wasn't any dead on the decks, most were in the weeds alongside, I suppose; but afterwards I found twoskeletons lying in the passengers' cabins, where death had come to them. It was curious to stand on that deck and recognise it all, bit by bit; aplace against the rail where I'd been fond of smoking by starlight, andthe corner where an old chap from Sydney used to flirt with a widow wehad aboard. A comfortable couple they'd been, only a month ago, and nowyou couldn't have got a meal for a baby crab off either of them. 

"I've always had a bit of a philosophical turn, and I daresay I spent thebest part of five minutes in such thoughts before I went below to findwhere the blessed dust was stored. It was slow work hunting, feeling itwas for the most part, pitchy dark, with confusing blue gleams down thecompanion. And there were things moving about, a dab at my glass once, andonce a pinch at my leg. Crabs, I expect. I kicked a lot of loose stuffthat puzzled me, and stooped and picked up something all knobs and spikes. What do you think? Backbone! But I never had any particular feeling forbones. We had talked the affair over pretty thoroughly, and Always knewjust where the stuff was stowed. I found it that trip. I lifted a box oneend an inch or more. "

He broke off in his story. "I've lifted it, " he said, "as near as that!Forty thousand pounds' worth of pure gold! Gold! I shouted inside myhelmet as a kind of cheer, and hurt my ears. I was getting confoundedstuffy and tired by this time--I must have been down twenty-five minutesor more--and I thought this was good enough. I went up the companionagain, and as my eyes came up flush with the deck, a thundering great crabgave a kind of hysterical jump and went scuttling off sideways. Quite astart it gave me. I stood up clear on deck and shut the valve behind thehelmet to let the air accumulate to carry me up again--I noticed a kind ofwhacking from above, as though they were hitting the water with an oar, but I didn't look up. I fancied they were signalling me to come up. 

"And then something shot down by me--something heavy, and stood a-quiverin the planks. I looked, and there was a long knife I'd seen young Sandershandling. Thinks I, he's dropped it, and I was still calling him this kindof fool and that---for it might have hurt me serious--when I began to liftand drive up towards the daylight. Just about the level of the top sparsof the _Ocean Pioneer_, whack! I came against something sinking down, and a boot knocked in front of my helmet. Then something else, strugglingfrightful. It was a big weight atop of me, whatever it was, and moving andtwisting about. I'd have thought it a big octopus, or some such thing, ifit hadn't been for the boot. But octopuses don't wear boots. It was all ina moment, of course. 

"I felt myself sinking down again, and I threw my arms about to keepsteady, and the whole lot rolled free of me and shot down as I went up--"

He paused. 

"I saw young Sanders's face, over a naked black shoulder, and a speardriven clean through his neck, and out of his mouth and neck what lookedlike spirts of pink smoke in the water. And down they went clutching oneanother, and turning over, and both too far gone to leave go. And inanother second my helmet came a whack, fit to split, against the niggers'canoe. It was niggers! Two canoes full. 

"It was lively times I tell you? Overboard came Always with three spearsin him. There was the legs of three or four black chaps kicking about mein the water. I couldn't see much, but I saw the game was up at a glance, gave my valve a tremendous twist, and went bubbling down again after poorAlways, in as awful a state of scare and astonishment as you can wellimagine. I passed young Sanders and the nigger going up again andstruggling still a bit, and in another moment I was standing in the dimagain on the deck of the _Ocean Pioneer_. 

"Gummy, thinks I, here's a fix! Niggers? At first I couldn't see anythingfor it but Stifle below or Stabs above. I didn't properly understand howmuch air there was to last me out, but I didn't feel like standing verymuch more of it down below. I was hot and frightfully heady, quite apartfrom the blue funk I was in. We'd never reckoned with these beastlynatives, filthy Papuan beasts. It wasn't any good coming up where I was, but I had to do something. On the spur of the moment, I clambered over theside of the brig and landed among the weeds, and set off through thedarkness as fast as I could. I just stopped once and knelt, and twistedback my head in the helmet and had a look up. It was a most extraordinarybright green-blue above, and the two canoes and the boat floating therevery small and distant like a kind of twisted H. And it made me feel sickto squint up at it, and think what the pitching and swaying of the threemeant. 

"It was just about the most horrible ten minutes I ever had, blunderingabout in that darkness--pressure something awful, like being buried insand, pain across the chest, sick with funk, and breathing nothing as itseemed but the smell of rum and mackintosh. Gummy! After a bit, I foundmyself going up a steepish sort of slope. I had another squint to see ifanything was visible of the canoes and boats, and then kept on. I stoppedwith my head a foot from the surface, and tried to see where I was going, but, of course, nothing was to be seen but the reflection of the bottom. Then out I dashed, like knocking my head through a mirror. Directly I gotmy eyes out of the water, I saw I'd come up a kind of beach near theforest. I had a look round, but the natives and the brig were both hiddenby a big hummucky heap of twisted lava. The born fool in me suggested arun for the woods. I didn't take the helmet off, but I eased open one ofthe windows, and, after a bit of a pant, went on out of the water. You'dhardly imagine how clean and light the air tasted. 

"Of course, with four inches of lead in your boot soles, and your head ina copper knob the size of a football, and been thirty-five minutes underwater, you don't break any records running. I ran like a ploughboy goingto work. And half-way to the trees I saw a dozen niggers or more, comingout in a gaping, astonished sort of way to meet me. 

"I just stopped dead, and cursed myself for all the fools out of London. Ihad about as much chance of cutting back to the water as a turned turtle. I just screwed up my window again to leave my hands free, and waited forthem. There wasn't anything else for me to do. 

"But they didn't come on very much. I began to suspect why. 'JimmyGoggles, ' I says, 'it's your beauty does it. ' I was inclined to be alittle lightheaded, I think, with all these dangers about and the changein the pressure of the blessed air. 'Who're ye staring at?' I said, as ifthe savages could hear me. 'What d'ye take me for? I'm hanged if I don'tgive you something to stare at, ' I said, and with that I screwed up theescape valve and turned on the compressed air from the belt, until I wasswelled out like a blown frog. Regular imposing it must have been. I'mblessed if they'd come on a step; and presently one and then another wentdown on their hands and knees. They didn't know what to make of me, andthey was doing the extra polite, which was very wise and reasonable ofthem. I had half a mind to edge back seaward and cut and run, but itseemed too hopeless. A step back and they'd have been after me. And out ofsheer desperation I began to march towards them up the beach, with slow, heavy steps, and waving my blown-out arms about, in a dignified manner. And inside of me I was singing as small as a tomtit. 

"But there's nothing like a striking appearance to help a man over adifficulty, --I've found that before and since. People like ourselves, who're up to diving dresses by the time we're seven, can scarcely imaginethe effect of one on a simple-minded savage. One or two of these niggerscut and run, the others started in a great hurry trying to knock theirbrains out on the ground. And on I went as slow and solemn andsilly-looking and artful as a jobbing plumber. It was evident they tookme for something immense. 

"Then up jumped one and began pointing, making extraordinary gestures tome as he did so, and all the others began sharing their attention betweenme and something out at; sea. 'What's the matter now?' I said. I turnedslowly on account of my dignity, and there I saw, coming round a point, the poor old _Pride of Banya_ towed by a couple of canoes. The sightfairly made me sick. But they evidently expected some recognition, so Iwaved my arms in a striking sort of non-committal manner. And then Iturned and stalked on towards the trees again. At that time I was prayinglike mad, I remember, over and over again: 'Lord help me through with it!Lord help me through with it!' It's only fools who know nothing of dangercan afford to laugh at praying. "

"But these niggers weren't going to let me walk through and away likethat. They started a kind of bowing dance about me, and sort of pressed meto take a pathway that lay through the trees. It was clear to me theydidn't take me for a British citizen, whatever else they thought of me, and for my own part I was never less anxious to own up to the old country. 

"You'd hardly believe it, perhaps, unless you're familiar with savages, but these poor, misguided, ignorant creatures took me straight to theirkind of joss place to present me to the blessed old black stone there. Bythis time I was beginning to sort of realise the depth of their ignorance, and directly I set eyes on this deity I took my cue. I started a baritonehowl, 'wow-wow, ' very long on one note, and began waving my arms about alot, and then very slowly and ceremoniously turned their image over on itsside and sat down on it. I wanted to sit down badly, for diving dressesain't much wear in the tropics. Or, to put it different like, they're asight too much. It took away their breath, I could see, my sitting ontheir joss, but in less time than a minute they made up their minds andwere hard at work worshipping me. And I can tell you I felt a bit relievedto see things turning out so well, in spite of the weight on my shouldersand feet. 

"But what made me anxious was what the chaps in the canoes might thinkwhen they came back. If they'd seen me in the boat before I went down, andwithout the helmet on--for they might have been spying and hiding sinceover night--they would very likely take a different view from the others. I was in a deuce of a stew about that for hours, as it seemed, until theshindy of the arrival began. 

"But they took it down--the whole blessed village took it down. At thecost of sitting up stiff and stern, as much like those sitting Egyptianimages one sees as I could manage, for pretty nearly twelve hours, Ishould guess at least, on end, I got over it. You'd hardly think what itmeant in that heat and stink. I don't think any of them dreamt of the maninside. I was just a wonderful leathery great joss that had come up withluck out of the water. But the fatigue! the heat! the beastly closeness!the mackintosheriness and the rum! and the fuss! They lit a stinking fireon a kind of lava slab there was before me, and brought in a lot of gorymuck--the worst parts of what they were feasting on outside, the Beasts--and burnt it all in my honour. I was getting a bit hungry, but Iunderstand now how gods manage to do without eating, what with the smellof burnt-offerings about them. And they brought in a lot of the stuffthey'd got off the brig and, among other stuff, what I was a bit relievedto see, the kind of pneumatic pump that was used for the compressed airaffair, and then a lot of chaps and girls came in and danced about mesomething disgraceful. It's extraordinary the different ways differentpeople have of showing respect. If I'd had a hatchet handy I'd have gonefor the lot of them--they made me feel that wild. All this time I sat asstiff as company, not knowing anything better to do. And at last, whennightfall came, and the wattle joss-house place got a bit too shadowy fortheir taste--all these here savages are afraid of the dark, you know--andI started a sort of 'Moo' noise, they built big bonfires outside and leftme alone in peace in the darkness of my hut, free to unscrew my windows abit and think things over, and feel just as bad as I liked. And Lord! Iwas sick. 

"I was weak and hungry, and my mind kept on behaving like a beetle on apin, tremendous activity and nothing done at the end of it. Come roundjust where it was before. There was sorrowing for the other chaps, beastlydrunkards certainly, but not deserving such a fate, and young Sanders withthe spear through his neck wouldn't go out of my mind. There was thetreasure down there in the _Ocean Pioneer_, and how one might get itand hide it somewhere safer, and get away and come back for it. And therewas the puzzle where to get anything to eat. I tell you I was fairrambling. I was afraid to ask by signs for food, for fear of behaving toohuman, and so there I sat and hungered until very near the dawn. Then thevillage got a bit quiet, and I couldn't stand it any longer, and I wentout and got some stuff like artichokes in a bowl and some sour milk. Whatwas left of these I put away among the other offerings, just to give thema hint of my tastes. And in the morning they came to worship, and found mesitting up stiff and respectable on their previous god, just as they'dleft me overnight. I'd got my back against the central pillar of the hut, and, practically, I was asleep. And that's how I became a god among theheathen--false god, no doubt, and blasphemous, but one can't always pickand choose. 

"Now, I don't want to crack myself up as a god beyond my merits, but Imust confess that while I was god to these people they was extraordinarysuccessful. I don't say there's anything in it, mind you. They won abattle with another tribe--I got a lot of offerings I didn't want throughit--they had wonderful fishing, and their crop of pourra was exceptionalfine. And they counted the capture of the brig among the benefits Ibrought 'em. I must say I don't think that was a poor record for aperfectly new hand. And, though perhaps you'd scarcely credit it, I wasthe tribal god of those beastly savages for pretty nearly four months... 

"What else could I do, man? But I didn't wear that diving-dress all thetime. I made 'em rig me up a sort of holy of holies, and a deuce of a timeI had too, making them understand what it was I wanted them to do. Thatindeed was the great difficulty--making them understand my wishes. Icouldn't let myself down by talking their lingo badly, even if I'd beenable to speak at all, and I couldn't go flapping a lot of gestures atthem. So I drew pictures in sand and sat down beside them and hooted likeone o'clock. Sometimes they did the things I wanted all right, andsometimes they did them all wrong. They was always very willing, certainly. All the while I was puzzling how I was to get the confoundedbusiness settled. Every night before the dawn I used to march out in fullrig and go off to a place where I could see the channel in which the_Ocean Pioneer_ lay sunk, and once even, one moonlight night, I triedto walk out to her, but the weeds and rocks and dark clean beat me. Ididn't get back till full day, and then I found all those silly niggersout on the beach praying their sea-god to return to them. I was that vexedand tired, messing and tumbling about, and coming up and going down again, I could have punched their silly heads all round when they startedrejoicing. Hanged if I like so much ceremony. 

"And then came the missionary. That missionary! _What_ a Guy! Gummy!It was in the afternoon, and I was sitting in state in my outer templeplace, sitting on that old black stone of theirs, when he came. I heard arow outside and jabbering, and then his voice speaking to an interpreter. 'They worship stocks and stones, ' he said, and I knew what was up, in aflash. I had one of my windows out for comfort, and I sang out straightaway on the spur of the moment. 'Stocks and stones!' I says. 'You comeinside, ' I says, 'and I'll punch your blooming Exeter Hall of a head. '

"There was a kind of silence and more jabbering, and in he came, Bible inhand, after the manner of them--a little sandy chap in specks and a pithhelmet. I flatter myself that me sitting there in the shadows, with mycopper head and my big goggles, struck him a bit of a heap at first. 'Well, ' I says, 'how's the trade in scissors?' for I don't hold withmissionaries. 

"I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quiteoutclassed by a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told him toread the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. There wasn't noinscription; why should there be? but down he goes to read, and hisinterpreter, being of course as superstitious as any of them, more so byreason of his seeing missionary close to, took it for an act of worshipand plumped down like a shot. All my people gave a howl of triumph, andthere wasn't any more business to be done in my village after thatjourney, not by the likes of him. 

"But, of course, I was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had anysense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken himinto Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, with a few hoursto think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving dressand the loss of the _Ocean Pioneer_. A week after he left I went outone morning and saw the _Motherhood_, the salver's ship from StarrRace, towing up the channel and sounding. The whole blessed game was up, and all my trouble thrown away. Gummy! How wild I felt! And guying it inthat stinking silly dress! Four months!"

The sunburnt man's story degenerated again. "Think of it, " he said, whenhe emerged to linguistic purity once more. "Forty thousand pounds' worthof gold. "

"Did the little missionary come back?" I asked. 

"Oh yes! bless him! And he pledged his reputation there was a man insidethe god, and started out to see as much with tremendous ceremony. Butwasn't--he got sold again. I always did hate scenes and explanations, andlong before he came I was out of it all--going home to Banya along thecoast, hiding in bushes by day, and thieving food from the villages bynight. Only weapon, a spear. No clothes, no money. Nothing. My face, myfortune, as the saying is. And just a squeak of eight thousand pounds ofgold--fifth share. But the natives cut up rusty, thank goodness, becausethey thought it was him had driven their luck away. "

 XXIV. 

 MISS WINCHELSEA'S HEART. 

Miss Winchelsea was going to Rome. The matter had filled her mind for amonth or more, and had overflowed so abundantly into her conversation thatquite a number of people who were not going to Rome, and who were notlikely to go to Rome, had made it a personal grievance against her. Someindeed had attempted quite unavailingly to convince her that Rome was notnearly such a desirable place as it was reported to be, and others hadgone so far as to suggest behind her back that she was dreadfully "stuckup" about "that Rome of hers. " And little Lily Hardhurst had told herfriend Mr. Binns that so far as she was concerned Miss Winchelsea might"go to her old Rome and stop there; _she_ (Miss Lily Hardhurst)wouldn't grieve. " And the way in which Miss Winchelsea put herself uponterms of personal tenderness with Horace and Benvenuto Cellini and Raphaeland Shelley and Keats--if she had been Shelley's widow she could not haveprofessed a keener interest in his grave--was a matter of universalastonishment. Her dress was a triumph of tactful discretion, sensible, butnot too "touristy"'--Miss Winchelsea had a great dread of being"touristy"--and her Baedeker was carried in a cover of grey to hide itsglaring red. She made a prim and pleasant little figure on the CharingCross platform, in spite of her swelling pride, when at last the great daydawned, and she could start for Rome. The day was bright, the Channelpassage would be pleasant, and all the omens promised well. There was thegayest sense of adventure in this unprecedented departure. 

She was going with two friends who had been fellow-students with her atthe training college, nice honest girls both, though not so good athistory and literature as Miss Winchelsea. They both looked up to herimmensely, though physically they had to look down, and she anticipatedsome pleasant times to be spent in "stirring them up" to her own pitch ofAEsthetic and historical enthusiasm. They had secured seats already, andwelcomed her effusively at the carriage door. In the instant criticism ofthe encounter she noted that Fanny had a slightly "touristy" leatherstrap, and that Helen had succumbed to a serge jacket with side pockets, into which her hands were thrust. But they were much too happy withthemselves and the expedition for their friend to attempt any hint at themoment about these things. As soon as the first ecstasies were over--Fanny's enthusiasm was a little noisy and crude, and consisted mainlyin emphatic repetitions of "Just _fancy_! we're going to Rome, mydear!--Rome!"--they gave their attention to their fellow-travellers. Helenwas anxious to secure a compartment to themselves, and, in order todiscourage intruders, got out and planted herself firmly on the step. MissWinchelsea peeped out over her shoulder, and made sly little remarks aboutthe accumulating people on the platform, at which Fanny laughed gleefully. 

They were travelling with one of Mr. Thomas Gunn's parties--fourteen daysin Rome for fourteen pounds. They did not belong to the personallyconducted party, of course--Miss Winchelsea had seen to that--but theytravelled with it because of the convenience of that arrangement. Thepeople were the oddest mixture, and wonderfully amusing. There was avociferous red-faced polyglot personal conductor in a pepper-and-saltsuit, very long in the arms and legs and very active. He shoutedproclamations. When he wanted to speak to people he stretched out an armand held them until his purpose was accomplished. One hand was full ofpapers, tickets, counterfoils of tourists. The people of the personallyconducted party were, it seemed, of two sorts; people the conductor wantedand could not find, and people he did not want and who followed him in asteadily growing tail up and down the platform. These people seemed, indeed, to think that their one chance of reaching Rome lay in keepingclose to him. Three little old ladies were particularly energetic in hispursuit, and at last maddened him to the pitch of clapping them into acarriage and daring them to emerge again. For the rest of the time, one, two, or three of their heads protruded from the window wailing inquiriesabout "a little wicker-work box" whenever he drew near. There was a verystout man with a very stout wife in shiny black; there was a little oldman like an aged hostler. 

"What _can_ such people want in Rome?" asked Miss Winchelsea. "Whatcan it mean to them?" There was a very tall curate in a very small strawhat, and a very short curate encumbered by a long camera stand. Thecontrast amused Fanny very much. Once they heard some one calling for"Snooks. " "I always thought that name was invented by novelists, " saidMiss Winchelsea. "Fancy! Snooks. I wonder which _is_ Mr. Snooks. "Finally they picked out a very stout and resolute little man in a largecheck suit. "If he isn't Snooks, he ought to be, " said Miss Winchelsea. 

Presently the conductor discovered Helen's attempt at a corner incarriages. "Room for five, " he bawled with a parallel translation on hisfingers. A party of four together--mother, father, and two daughters--blundered in, all greatly excited. "It's all right, Ma--you let me, " saidone of the daughters, hitting her mother's bonnet with a handbag shestruggled to put in the rack. Miss Winchelsea detested people who bangedabout and called their mother "Ma. " A young man travelling alone followed. He was not at all "touristy" in his costume, Miss Winchelsea observed; hisGladstone bag was of good pleasant leather with labels reminiscent ofLuxembourg and Ostend, and his boots, though brown, were not vulgar. Hecarried an overcoat on his arm. Before these people had properly settledin their places, came an inspection of tickets and a slamming of doors, and behold! they were gliding out of Charing Cross Station on their way toRome. 

"Fancy!" cried Fanny, "we are going to Rome, my dear! Rome! I don't seemto believe it, even now. "

Miss Winchelsea suppressed Fanny's emotions with a little smile, and thelady who was called "Ma" explained to people in general why they had "cutit so close" at the station. The two daughters called her "Ma" severaltimes, toned her down in a tactless, effective way, and drove her at lastto the muttered inventory of a basket of travelling requisites. Presentlyshe looked up. "Lor!" she said, "I didn't bring _them_!" Both thedaughters said "Oh, Ma!" But what "them" was did not appear. 

Presently Fanny produced Hare's _Walks in Rome_, a sort of mitigatedguide-book very popular among Roman visitors; and the father of the twodaughters began to examine his books of tickets minutely, apparently in asearch after English words. When he had looked at the tickets for a longtime right way up, he turned them upside down. Then he produced a fountainpen and dated them with considerable care. The young man having completedan unostentatious survey of his fellow-travellers produced a book and fellto reading. When Helen and Fanny were looking out of the window atChislehurst--the place interested Fanny because the poor dear Empress ofthe French used to live there--Miss Winchelsea took the opportunity toobserve the book the young man held. It was not a guide-book but a littlethin volume of poetry--_bound_. She glanced at his face--it seemed arefined, pleasant face to her hasty glance. He wore a little gilt_pince-nez_. "Do you think she lives there now?" said Fanny, and MissWinchelsea's inspection came to an end. 

For the rest of the journey Miss Winchelsea talked little, and what shesaid was as agreeable and as stamped with refinement as she could make it. Her voice was always low and clear and pleasant, and she took care that onthis occasion it was particularly low and clear and pleasant. As they cameunder the white cliffs the young man put his book of poetry away, and whenat last the train stopped beside the boat, he displayed a gracefulalacrity with the impedimenta of Miss Winchelsea and her friends. MissWinchelsea "hated nonsense, " but she was pleased to see the young manperceived at once that they were ladies, and helped them without anyviolent geniality; and how nicely he showed that his civilities were to beno excuse for further intrusions. None of her little party had been out ofEngland before, and they were all excited and a little nervous at theChannel passage. They stood in a little group in a good place near themiddle of the boat--the young man had taken Miss Winchelsea's carry-allthere and had told her it was a good place--and they watched the whiteshores of Albion recede and quoted Shakespeare and made quiet fun of theirfellow-travellers in the English way. 

They were particularly amused at the precautions the bigger-sized peoplehad taken against the little waves--cut lemons and flasks prevailed, onelady lay full length in a deck chair with a handkerchief over her face, and a very broad resolute man in a bright brown "touristy" suit walked allthe way from England to France along the deck, with his legs as widelyapart as Providence permitted. These were all excellent precautions, andnobody was ill. The personally-conducted party pursued the conductor aboutthe deck with inquiries, in a manner that suggested to Helen's mind therather vulgar image of hens with a piece of bacon rind, until at last hewent into hiding below. And the young man with the thin volume of poetrystood at the stern watching England receding, looking rather lonely andsad to Miss Winchelsea's eye. 

And then came Calais and tumultuous novelties, and the young man had notforgotten Miss Winchelsea's hold-all and the other little things. Allthree girls, though they had passed Government examinations in French toany extent, were stricken with a dumb shame of their accents, and theyoung man was very useful. And he did not intrude. He put them in acomfortable carriage and raised his hat and went away. Miss Winchelseathanked him in her best manner--a pleasing, cultivated manner--and Fannysaid he was "nice" almost before he was out of earshot. "I wonder what hecan be, " said Helen. "He's going to Italy, because I noticed green ticketsin his book. " Miss Winchelsea almost told them of the poetry, and decidednot to do so. And presently the carriage windows seized hold upon them andthe young man was forgotten. It made them feel that they were doing aneducated sort of thing to travel through a country whose commonestadvertisements were in idiomatic French, and Miss Winchelsea madeunpatriotic comparisons because there were weedy little sign-boardadvertisements by the rail side instead of the broad hoardings that defacethe landscape in our land. But the north of France is really uninterestingcountry, and after a time Fanny reverted to Hare's _Walks_, and Heleninitiated lunch. Miss Winchelsea awoke out of a happy reverie; she hadbeen trying to realise, she said, that she was actually going to Rome, butshe perceived at Helen's suggestion that she was hungry, and they lunchedout of their baskets very cheerfully. In the afternoon they were tired andsilent until Helen made tea. Miss Winchelsea might have dozed, only sheknew Fanny slept with her mouth open; and as their fellow-passengers weretwo rather nice, critical-looking ladies of uncertain age--who knew Frenchwell enough to talk it--she employed herself in keeping Fanny awake. Therhythm of the train became insistent, and the streaming landscape outsidebecame at last quite painful to the eye. They were already dreadfullytired of travelling before their night's stoppage came. 

The stoppage for the night was brightened by the appearance of the youngman, and his manners were all that could be desired and his French quiteserviceable. 

His coupons availed for the same hotel as theirs, and by chance, as itseemed, he sat next Miss Winchelsea at the _table d'hôte. _ In spiteof her enthusiasm for Rome, she had thought out some such possibility verythoroughly, and when he ventured to make a remark upon the tediousness oftravelling--he let the soup and fish go by before he did this--she did notsimply assent to his proposition, but responded with another. They weresoon comparing their journeys, and Helen and Fanny were cruelly overlookedin the conversation.. It was to be the same journey, they found; one dayfor the galleries at Florence--"from what I hear, " said the young man, "itis barely enough, "--and the rest at Rome. He talked of Rome verypleasantly; he was evidently quite well read, and he quoted Horace aboutSoracte. Miss Winchelsea had "done" that book of Horace for hermatriculation, and was delighted to cap his quotation. It gave a sort oftone to things, this incident--a touch of refinement to mere chatting. Fanny expressed a few emotions, and Helen interpolated a few sensibleremarks, but the bulk of the talk on the girls' side naturally fell toMiss Winchelsea. 

Before they reached Rome this young man was tacitly of their party. Theydid not know his name nor what he was, but it seemed he taught, and MissWinchelsea had a shrewd idea he was an extension lecturer. At any rate hewas something of that sort, something gentlemanly and refined withoutbeing opulent and impossible. She tried once or twice to ascertain whetherhe came from Oxford or Cambridge, but he missed her timid opportunities. She tried to get him to make remarks about those places to see if he wouldsay "come up" to them instead of "go down, "--she knew that was how youtold a 'Varsity man. He used the word "'Varsity"--not university--in quitethe proper way. 

They saw as much of Mr. Ruskin's Florence as the brief time permitted; hemet them in the Pitti Gallery and went round with them, chatting brightly, and evidently very grateful for their recognition. He knew a great dealabout art, and all four enjoyed the morning immensely. It was fine to goround recognising old favourites and finding new beauties, especiallywhile so many people fumbled helplessly with Baedeker. Nor was he a bit ofa prig, Miss Winchelsea said, and indeed she detested prigs. He had adistinct undertone of humour, and was funny, for example, without beingvulgar, at the expense of the quaint work of Beato Angelico. He had agrave seriousness beneath it all, and was quick to seize the moral lessonsof the pictures. Fanny went softly among these masterpieces; she admitted"she knew so little about them, " and she confessed that to her they were"all beautiful. " Fanny's "beautiful" inclined to be a little monotonous, Miss Winchelsea thought. She had been quite glad when the last sunny Alphad vanished, because of the staccato of Fanny's admiration. Helen saidlittle, but Miss Winchelsea had found her a trifle wanting on theaesthetic side in the old days and was not surprised; sometimes shelaughed at the young man's hesitating, delicate jests and sometimes shedidn't, and sometimes she seemed quite lost to the art about them in thecontemplation of the dresses of the other visitors. 

At Rome the young man was with them intermittently. A rather "touristy"friend of his took him away at times. He complained comically to MissWinchelsea. "I have only two short weeks in Rome, " he said, "and my friendLeonard wants to spend a whole day at Tivoli looking at a waterfall. "

"What is your friend Leonard?" asked Miss Winchelsea abruptly. 

"He's the most enthusiastic pedestrian I ever met, " the young manreplied--amusingly, but a little unsatisfactorily, Miss Winchelseathought. 

They had some glorious times, and Fanny could not think what they wouldhave done without him. Miss Winchelsea's interest and Fanny's enormouscapacity for admiration were insatiable. They never flagged--throughpictures and sculpture galleries, immense crowded churches, ruins andmuseums, Judas trees and prickly pears, wine carts and palaces, theyadmired their way unflinchingly. They never saw a stone pine or aeucalyptus but they named and admired it; they never glimpsed Soracte butthey exclaimed. Their common ways were made wonderful by imaginative play. "Here Caesar may have walked, " they would say. "Raphael may have seenSoracte from this very point. " They happened on the tomb of Bibulus. "OldBibulus, " said the young man. "The oldest monument of Republican Rome!"said Miss Winchelsea. 

"I'm dreadfully stupid, " said Fanny, "but who _was_ Bibulus?"

There was a curious little pause. 

"Wasn't he the person who built the wall?" said Helen. 

The young man glanced quickly at her and laughed. "That was Balbus, " hesaid. Helen reddened, but neither he nor Miss Winchelsea threw any lightupon Fanny's ignorance about Bibulus. 

Helen was more taciturn than the other three, but then she was alwaystaciturn, and usually she took care of the tram tickets and things likethat, or kept her eye on them if the young man took them, and told himwhere they were when he wanted them. Glorious times they had, these youngpeople, in that pale brown cleanly city of memories that was once theworld. Their only sorrow was the shortness of the time. They said indeedthat the electric trams and the '70 buildings, and that criminaladvertisement that glares upon the Forum, outraged their aestheticfeelings unspeakably; but that was only part of the fun. And indeed Romeis such a wonderful place that it made Miss Winchelsea forget some of hermost carefully prepared enthusiasms at times, and Helen, taken unawares, would suddenly admit the beauty of unexpected things. Yet Fanny and Helenwould have liked a shop window or so in the English quarter if MissWinchelsea's uncompromising hostility to all other English visitors hadnot rendered that district impossible. 

The intellectual and aesthetic fellowship of Miss Winchelsea and thescholarly young man passed insensibly towards a deeper feeling. Theexuberant Fanny did her best to keep pace with their recondite admirationby playing her "beautiful" with vigour, and saying "Oh! _let's_ go, "with enormous appetite whenever a new place of interest was mentioned. ButHelen developed a certain want of sympathy towards the end thatdisappointed Miss Winchelsea a little. She refused to see "anything" inthe face of Beatrice Cenci--Shelley's Beatrice Cenci!--in the BarberiniGallery; and one day, when they were deploring the electric trams, shesaid rather snappishly that "people must get about somehow, and it'sbetter than torturing horses up these horrid little hills. " She spoke ofthe Seven Hills of Rome as "horrid little hills "!

And the day they went on the Palatine--though Miss Winchelsea did not knowof this--she remarked suddenly to Fanny, "Don't hurry like that, my dear;_they_ don't want us to overtake them. And we don't say the rightthings for them when we _do_ get near. "

"I wasn't trying to overtake them, " said Fanny, slackening her excessivepace; "I wasn't indeed. " And for a minute she was short of breath. 

But Miss Winchelsea had come upon happiness. It was only when she came tolook back across an intervening tragedy that she quite realised how happyshe had been pacing among the cypress-shadowed ruins, and exchanging thevery highest class of information the human mind can possess, the mostrefined impressions it is possible to convey. Insensibly emotion creptinto their intercourse, sunning itself openly and pleasantly at last whenHelen's modernity was not too near. Insensibly their interest drifted fromthe wonderful associations about them to their more intimate and personalfeelings. In a tentative way information was supplied; she spokeallusively of her school, of her examination successes, of her gladnessthat the days of "Cram" were over. He made it quite clear that he also wasa teacher. They spoke of the greatness of their calling, of the necessityof sympathy to face its irksome details, of a certain loneliness theysometimes felt. 

That was in the Colosseum, and it was as far as they got that day, becauseHelen returned with Fanny--she had taken her into the upper galleries. Yetthe private dreams of Miss Winchelsea, already vivid and concrete enough, became now realistic in the highest degree. She figured that pleasantyoung man lecturing in the most edifying way to his students, herselfmodestly prominent as his intellectual mate and helper; she figured arefined little home, with two bureaus, with white shelves of high-classbooks, and autotypes of the pictures of Rossetti and Burne Jones, withMorris's wall-papers and flowers in pots of beaten copper. Indeed shefigured many things. On the Pincio the two had a few precious momentstogether, while Helen marched Fanny off to see the _muro Torto_, andhe spoke at once plainly. He said he hoped their friendship was onlybeginning, that he already found her company very precious to him, thatindeed it was more than that. 

He became nervous, thrusting at his glasses with trembling fingers asthough he fancied his emotions made them unstable. "I should of course, "he said, "tell you things about myself. I know it is rather unusual myspeaking to you like this. Only our meeting has been so accidental--orprovidential--and I am snatching at things. I came to Rome expecting alonely tour ... And I have been so very happy, so very happy. Quiterecently I have found myself in a position--I have dared to think----, And----"

He glanced over his shoulder and stopped. He said "Demn!" quitedistinctly--and she did not condemn him for that manly lapse intoprofanity. She looked and saw his friend Leonard advancing. He drewnearer; he raised his hat to Miss Winchelsea, and his smile was almost agrin. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Snooks, " he said. "Youpromised to be on the Piazza steps half-an-hour ago. "

Snooks! The name struck Miss Winchelsea like a blow in the face. She didnot hear his reply. She thought afterwards that Leonard must haveconsidered her the vaguest-minded person. To this day she is not surewhether she was introduced to Leonard or not, nor what she said to him. Asort of mental paralysis was upon her. Of all offensive surnames--Snooks!

Helen and Fanny were returning, there were civilities, and the young menwere receding. By a great effort she controlled herself to face theinquiring eyes of her friends. All that afternoon she lived the life of aheroine under the indescribable outrage of that name, chatting, observing, with "Snooks" gnawing at her heart. From the moment that it first rangupon her ears, the dream of her happiness was prostrate in the dust. Allthe refinement she had figured was ruined and defaced by that cognomen'sunavoidable vulgarity. 

What was that refined little home to her now, spite of autotypes, Morrispapers, and bureaus? Athwart it in letters of fire ran an incredibleinscription: "Mrs. Snooks. " That may seem a little thing to the reader, but consider the delicate refinement of Miss Winchelsea's mind. Be asrefined as you can and then think of writing yourself down:--"Snooks. " Sheconceived herself being addressed as Mrs. Snooks by all the people sheliked least, conceived the patronymic touched with a vague quality ofinsult. She figured a card of grey and silver bearing 'Winchelsea'triumphantly effaced by an arrow, Cupid's arrow, in favour of "Snooks. "Degrading confession of feminine weakness! She imagined the terriblerejoicings of certain girl friends, of certain grocer cousins from whomher growing refinement had long since estranged her. How they would makeit sprawl across the envelope that would bring their sarcasticcongratulations. Would even his pleasant company compensate her for that?"It is impossible, " she muttered; "impossible! _Snooks!_"

She was sorry for him, but not so sorry as she was for herself. For himshe had a touch of indignation. To be so nice, so refined, while all thetime he was "Snooks, " to hide under a pretentious gentility of demeanourthe badge sinister of his surname seemed a sort of treachery. To put it inthe language of sentimental science she felt he had "led her on. "

There were, of course, moments of terrible vacillation, a period even whensomething almost like passion bid her throw refinement to the winds. Andthere was something in her, an unexpurgated vestige of vulgarity that madea strenuous attempt at proving that Snooks was not so very bad a nameafter all. Any hovering hesitation flew before Fanny's manner, when Fannycame with an air of catastrophe to tell that she also knew the horror. Fanny's voice fell to a whisper when she said _Snooks_. MissWinchelsea would not give him any answer when at last, in the Borghese, she could have a minute with him; but she promised him a note. 

She handed him that note in the little book of poetry he had lent her, thelittle book that had first drawn them together. Her refusal was ambiguous, allusive. She could no more tell him why she rejected him than she couldhave told a cripple of his hump. He too must feel something of theunspeakable quality of his name. Indeed he had avoided a dozen chances oftelling it, she now perceived. So she spoke of "obstacles she could notreveal"--"reasons why the thing he spoke of was impossible. " She addressedthe note with a shiver, "E. K. Snooks. "

Things were worse than she had dreaded; he asked her to explain. How_could_ she explain? Those last two days in Rome were dreadful. Shewas haunted by his air of astonished perplexity. She knew she had givenhim intimate hopes, she had not the courage to examine her mind thoroughlyfor the extent of her encouragement. She knew he must think her the mostchangeable of beings. Now that she was in full retreat, she would not evenperceive his hints of a possible correspondence. But in that matter he dida thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made ago-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and toldher that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. Snooks, "said Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I lethim?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea wascareful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting hisdisregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painfulthough his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might bepermitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion. After shehad gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window of her littleroom. It was moonlight, and down the street a man sang "Santa Lucia" withalmost heart-dissolving tenderness... She sat very still. 

She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "_Snooks_. "Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning hesaid to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend. "

Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogativeperplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he wouldhave retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort ofencyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea onsix separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest oflong letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her newschool--she was always going to new schools--would be only five miles fromSteely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or twofirst-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even seeher at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always spokeof "him, " never of Mr. Snooks--because Helen was apt to say unsympatheticthings about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, Miss Winchelseaperceived, since the old Training College days; she had become hard andcynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking refinement for weaknessas people of her stamp are apt to do, and when she heard his name wasSnooks, she said she had expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelseawas careful to spare her own feelings after that, but Fanny was lesscircumspect. 

The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a newinterest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been anincreasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new interestin life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead she wrote hera lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her return. Fannyanswered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no literary gift, but itwas new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself deploring the want of gifts ina friend. That letter was even criticised aloud in the safe solitude ofMiss Winchelsea's study, and her criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was "Twaddle!" It was full of just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter hadbeen full of, particulars of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only thismuch: "I have had a letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see meon two Saturday afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we bothtalked about you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear... "

Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information, and wrote the sweetest, long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself, dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do sowant to keep in touch with you. " About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote on thefifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if he_should_ ask after her, she was to be remembered to him _verykindly_ (underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely in the key ofthat "ancient friendship, " reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolishthings of those old schoolgirl days at the Training College, and sayingnot a word about Mr. Snooks!

For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny asa go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote lesseffusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, "Have you seen Mr. Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. "I _have_ seenMr. Snooks, " she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him;it was all Snooks--Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a publiclecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after thefirst glow of gratification, still found this letter a littleunsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything aboutMiss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought tohave been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second letterfrom Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and covering sixsheets with her loose feminine hand. 

And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that MissWinchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's naturalfemininity had prevailed even against the round and clear traditions ofthe Training College; she was one of those she-creatures born tomake all her _m'_s and _n'_s and _u'_s and _r'_s and _e'_salike, and to leave her _o'_s and _a'_s open and her _i'_sundotted. So that it was only after an elaborate comparison of word withword that Miss Winchelsea felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks" at all! In Fanny's first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks, " inher second the spelling was changed to Mr. "Senoks. " Miss Winchelsea'shand positively trembled as she turned the sheet over--it meant so much toher. For it had already begun to seem to her that even the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided at too great a price, and suddenly--thispossibility! She turned over the six sheets, all dappled with thatcritical name, and everywhere the first letter had the form of an_e_! For a time she walked the room with a hand pressed upon herheart. 

She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of inquirythat should be at once discreet and effectual; weighing, too, what actionshe should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if thisaltered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's, shewould write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage when theminor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained uninvented, but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind, even to the hintthat "circumstances in my life have changed very greatly since we talkedtogether. " But she never gave that hint. There came a third letter fromthat fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line proclaimed her "thehappiest girl alive. "

Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand--the rest unread--and satwith her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morningschool, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well underway. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. Butafter the first sheet she went on reading the third without discoveringthe error:--"told him frankly I did not like his name, " the third sheetbegan. "He told me he did not like it himself--you know that sort ofsudden, frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea did know. "So I said, 'couldn'tyou change it?' He didn't see it at first. Well, you know, dear, he hadtold me what it really meant; it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down toSnooks--both Snooks and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideasat times--'If it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it backfrom Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, hecouldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoksfor the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, weshall put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him tomind that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it isjust like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew aswell as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been tentimes Snooks. But he did it all the same. "

The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, andlooked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face and with some verysmall pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they staredat her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even tone. Sheremained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. And shespent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts to Fanny, before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason struggledhopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedinglytreacherous manner. 

One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart. Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexualhostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. "He forgothimself with me, " she said. "But Fanny is pink and pretty and soft and afool--a very excellent match for a Man. " And by way of a wedding presentshe sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by George Meredith, andFanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that it was "_all_beautiful. " Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take upthat slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote severaltimes before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their"ancient friendship, " and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. AndMiss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very cordial feelings. 

They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the Augustvacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing herhome-coming and the astonishing arrangements of their "teeny, weeny"little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in MissWinchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, andshe tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny"little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosy corner, " said Fanny, sprawling tothe end of her third sheet, "so excuse more. " Miss Winchelsea answered inher best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements, and hopingintensely that Mr. Se'noks might see the letter. Only this hope enabledher to write at all, answering not only that letter but one in Novemberand one at Christmas. 

The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to cometo Steely Bank on a visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried tothink that _he_ had told her to ask that, but it was too much likeFanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must besick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that hewould presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend. " Somethingsubtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sadmisunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But henever wrote that letter beginning "Dear Friend. "

For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in spite ofthe reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became full Sevenoaks inthe second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt lonely andwithout a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind ran once moreon what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy inher new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt _he_ had his lonelyhours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome, gone now beyond recalling?No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. Itwould be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and what harmcould it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave--which would not come; and thenext day she composed a graceful little note to tell Fanny she was comingdown. 

And so she saw him again. 

Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemedstouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversationhad already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed ajustification for Helen's description of weakness in his face--in certainlights it _was_ weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about hisaffairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had come forthe sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an intelligentway. They only had one good long talk together, and that came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a man who had stolenan idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a very wonderful ideato Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten the names of more thanhalf the painters whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence. 

It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when itcame to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again. After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, andFanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long sincefaded away. 

 XXV. 

 A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON. 

The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved slowlyin spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was still on theplatform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner overagainst me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to arrange histravelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, looked up at me, andput out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then he glanced again in mydirection. 

I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in amoment I was surprised to find him speaking. 

"I beg your pardon?" said I. 

"That book, " he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams. "

"Obviously, " I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's _Dream States_, and the title was on the cover. 

He hung silent for a space as if he sought words. "Yes, " he said, at last, "but they tell you nothing. "

I did not catch his meaning for a second. 

"They don't know, " he added. 

I looked a little more attentively at his face. 

"There are dreams, " he said, "and dreams. " That sort of proposition Inever dispute. "I suppose----" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I meanvividly. "

"I dream very little, " I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid dreamsin a year. "

"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts. 

"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. "You don'tfind yourself in doubt: did this happen or did it not?"

"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. Isuppose few people do. "

"Does _he_ say----" he indicated the book. 

"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about intensityof impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule. Isuppose you know something of these theories----"

"Very little--except that they are wrong. "

His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. Iprepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his nextremark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me. 

"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on nightafter night?"

"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mentaltrouble. "

"Mental trouble! Yes. I daresay there are. It's the right place for them. But what I mean----" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort ofthing always dreaming? _Is_ it dreaming? Or is it something else?Mightn't it be something else?"

I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawnanxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and thelids red stained--perhaps you know that look. 

"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion, " he said. "The thing'skilling me. "

"Dreams?"

"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid ... This--"(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seemsunreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I amon ... "

He paused. "Even now--"

"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked. 

"It's over. "

"You mean?"

"I died. "

"Died?"

"Smashed and killed, and now so much of me as that dream was is dead. Deadfor ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a different partof the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night after night. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and freshhappenings--until I came upon the last--"

"When you died?"

"When I died. "

"And since then--"

"No, " he said. "Thank God! that was the end of the dream... "

It was clear I was in for this dream. And, after all, I had an hour beforeme, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary way withhim. "Living in a different time, " I said: "do you mean in some differentage?"

"Yes. "

"Past?"

"No, to come--to come. "

"The year three thousand, for example?"

"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I wasdreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's a lot ofthings I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I knewthem at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called theyear differently from our way of calling the year... What _did_ theycall it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No, " said he, "I forget. "

He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell mehis dream. As a rule, I hate people who tell their dreams, but this struckme differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began----" I suggested. 

"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And it'scurious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered this lifeI am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough while itlasted. Perhaps----But I will tell you how I find myself when I do mybest to recall it all. I don't remember anything clearly until I foundmyself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I had beendozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit dreamlike--because the girl had stopped fanning me. "

"The girl?"

"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out. "

He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said. 

"No, " I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream. "

"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was notsurprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand. Idid not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at thatpoint. Whatever memory I had of _this_ life, this nineteenth-centurylife, faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about myposition in the world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a wantof connection--but it was all quite clear and matter-of-fact then. "

He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward, and looking up to me appealingly. 

"This seems bosh to you?"

"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like. "

"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced south. It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above the balconythat showed the sky and sea and the corner where the girl stood. I was ona couch--it was a metal couch with light striped cushions--and the girlwas leaning over the balcony with her back to me. The light of the sunrisefell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white neck and the little curls thatnestled there, and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the graceof her body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can Idescribe it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, sothat it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I hadnever seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself upon myarm she turned her face to me--"

He stopped. 

"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother, sisters, friends, wife and daughters--all their faces, the play of theirfaces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to me. Ican bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw it orpaint it. And after all--"

He stopped--but I said nothing. 

"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not thatbeauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of asaint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort ofradiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave gray eyes. Andshe moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant andgracious things--"

He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up at meand went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute belief inthe reality of his story. 

"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had everworked for or desired, for her sake. I had been a master man away there inthe north, with influence and property and a great reputation, but none ofit had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the place, this cityof sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things to wreck and ruinjust to save a remnant at least of my life. While I had been in love withher before I knew that she had any care for me, before I had imagined thatshe would dare--that we should dare--all my life had seemed vain andhollow, dust and ashes. It _was_ dust and ashes. Night after night, and through the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beatenagainst the thing forbidden!

"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. It'semotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's there, everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left them intheir crisis to do what they could. "

"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled. 

"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I hadbeen a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group themselvesabout. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do things andrisk things because of their confidence in me. I had been playing thatgame for years, that big laborious game, that vague, monstrous politicalgame amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vastweltering world, and at last I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--you know it was called the Gang--a sort of compromise of scoundrellyprojects and base ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities andcatch-words--the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year by year, and all the while that it was drifting, drifting towards infinitedisaster. But I can't expect you to understand the shades andcomplications of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had itall--down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had beendreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer newdevelopment I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. It wassome grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I sat up onthe couch and remained looking at the woman, and rejoicing--rejoicing thatI had come away out of all that tumult and folly and violence before itwas too late. After all, I thought, this is life--love and beauty, desireand delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague, gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leaderwhen I might have given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had notspent my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself uponvain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in loveand tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last andcompelled me--compelled me by her invincible charm for me--to lay thatlife aside. 

"'You are worth it, ' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; 'youare worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all things. Love!to have _you_ is worth them all together. ' And at the murmur of myvoice she turned about. 

"'Come and see, ' she cried--I can hear her now--come and see the sunriseupon Monte Solaro. '

"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She puta white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses oflimestone flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted thesunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How can Idescribe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri----"

"I have been there, " I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk_vero Capri_--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit. "

"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell me--youwill know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have never beenthere. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a vastmultitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of thelimestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island, you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on theother side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stagesto which the flying machines came. They called it a Pleasure City. Ofcourse, there was none of that in your time--rather, I should say, _is_ none of that _now_. Of course. Now!--yes. 

"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that onecould see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet highperhaps, coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond it theIsle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed into the hotsunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near was a littlebay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro, straight and tall, flushed and golden-crested, like a beauty throned, andthe white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from eastto west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with littlesailing-boats. 

"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were gray and very minuteand clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold--shininggold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a rock with an archworn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and foam all round therock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch. "

"I know that rock, " I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called theFaraglioni. "

"_Faraglioni_? Yes, _she_ called it that, " answered the man withthe white face. "There was some story--but that----"

He put his hand to his forehead again. "No, " he said, "I forget thatstory. 

"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, thatlittle shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady ofmine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat andtalked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers, not becausethere was any one to hear, but because there was still such a freshness ofmind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, I think, tofind themselves at last in words. And so they went softly. 

"Presently we were hungry, and we went from our apartment, going by astrange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the greatbreakfast-room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyfulplace it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of pluckedstrings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would notheed a man who was watching me from a table near by. 

"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describethat hall. The place was enormous, larger than any building you have everseen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into thewall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora across theroof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about the greatcircle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, andintricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundatedwith artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went throughthe throng the people turned about and looked at us, for all through theworld my name and face were known, and how I had suddenly thrown up pride, and struggle to come to this place. And they looked also at the ladybeside me, though half the story of how at last she had come to me wasunknown or mistold. And few of the men who were there, I know, but judgedme a happy man, in spite of all the shame and dishonour that had come uponmy name. 

"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the rhythmof beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about thehall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were dressedin splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced about thegreat circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and gloriousprocessions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not thedreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that werebeautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing--dancingjoyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she danced with aserious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and caressing me--smilingand caressing with her eyes. 

"The music was different, " he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it;but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has evercome to me awake. 

"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to me. Hewas a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and already Ihad marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and afterwardsas we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, as we sat ina little alcove smiling at the pleasure of all the people who went to andfro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, and spoke to me sothat I was forced to listen. And he asked that he might speak to me for alittle time apart. 

"'No, ' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to tellme?'

"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady tohear. 

"'Perhaps for me to hear, ' said I. 

"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he askedme suddenly if I. Had heard of a great and avenging declaration thatGresham had made. Now, Gresham had always before been the man next tomyself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was aforcible, hard, and tactless man, and only I had been able to control andsoften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that theothers had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about what hehad done re-awakened my old interest in the life I had put aside just fora moment. 

"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days, ' I said. 'What hasGresham been saying?'

"And with that the man began, nothing loth, and I must confess ever; I wasstruck by Gresham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words hehad used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me ofGresham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what needthey had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and watchedhis face and mine. 

"My old habits of scheming and organising reasserted themselves. I couldeven see myself suddenly returning to the north, and all the dramaticeffect of it. All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of theparty indeed, but not to its damage. I should go back stronger than I hadcome. And then I thought of my lady. You see--how can I tell you? Therewere certain peculiarities of our relationship--as things are I need nottell about that--which would render her presence with me impossible. Ishould have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce herclearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. Andthe man knew _that_, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as wellas she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, thenabandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return wasshattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his eloquencewas gaining ground with me. 

"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done withthem. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?'

"'No, ' he said; 'but----'

"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I haveceased to be anything but a private man. '

"'Yes, ' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, thesereckless challenges, these wild aggressions----'

"I stood up. 

"'No, ' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, Iweighed them--and I have come away. "

"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from meto where the lady sat regarding us. 

"'War, ' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned slowlyfrom me and walked away. 

"I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts his appeal had set going. 

"I heard my lady's voice. 

"'Dear, ' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'

"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to hersweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled. 

"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves, ' I said. 'If they distrust Gresham they must settle with him themselves. '

"She looked at me doubtfully. 

"'But war--' she said. 

"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself andme, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and completely, must drive us apart for ever. 

"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this beliefor that. 

"'My dear one, ' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. Therewill be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past. Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me, dearest, and no one has a right upon me. I have been free to choose mylife, and I have chosen this. '

"'But _war_--' she said. 

"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in mine. I set myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill her mind withpleasant things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I lied also tomyself. And she was only too ready to believe me, only too ready toforget. 

"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to ourbathing-place in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom tobathe every day. We swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyantwater I seemed to become something lighter and stronger than a man. And atlast we came out dripping and rejoicing and raced among the rocks. Andthen I put on a dry bathing-dress, and we sat to bask in the sun, andpresently I nodded, resting my head against her knee, and she put her handupon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And behold! as it werewith the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening, and I was inmy own bed in Liverpool, in the life of to-day. 

"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had beenno more than the substance of a dream. 

"In truth, I could not believe it a dream, for all the sobering reality ofthings about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I shavedI argued why I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go back tofantastic politics in the hard and strenuous north. Even if Gresham didforce the world back to war, what was that to me? I was a man, with theheart of a man, and why should I feel the responsibility of a deity forthe way the world might go?

"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my realaffairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view. 

"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream, that I kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even theornament of a bookcover that lay on my wife's sewing-machine in thebreakfast-room recalled with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ranabout the seat in the alcove where I had talked with the messenger from mydeserted party. Have you ever heard of a dream that had a quality likethat?"

"Like--?"

"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten. "

I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right. 

"Never, " I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams. "

"No, " he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, youmust understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering what theclients and business people I found myself talking to in my office wouldthink if I told them suddenly I was in love with a girl who would be borna couple of hundred years or so hence, and worried about the politics ofmy great-great-great-grandchildren. I was chiefly busy that daynegotiating a ninety-nine-year building lease. It was a private builder ina hurry, and we wanted to tie him in every possible way. I had aninterview with him, and he showed a certain want of temper that sent me tobed still irritated. That night I had no dream. Nor did I dream the nextnight, at least, to remember. 

"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began to feelsure it _was_ a dream. And then it came again. 

"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very different. I think it certain that four days had also elapsed _in_ the dream. Many things had happened in the north, and the shadow of them was backagain between us, and this time it was not so easily dispelled. I began, Iknow, with moody musings. Why, in spite of all, should I go back, go backfor all the rest of my days, to toil and stress, insults, and perpetualdissatisfaction, simply to save hundreds of millions of common people, whom I did not love, whom too often I could not do other than despise, from the stress and anguish of war and infinite misrule? And, after all, Imight fail. _They_ all sought their own narrow ends, and why shouldnot I--why should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts hervoice summoned me, and I lifted my eyes. 

"I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the PleasureCity, we were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the bay. It was the late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left Ischia hungin a golden haze between sea and sky, and Naples was coldly white againstthe hills, and before us was Vesuvius with a tall and slender streamerfeathering at last towards the south, and the ruins of Torre dell'Annunziata and Castellammare glittering and near. "

I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?"

"Only in this dream, " he said, "only in this dream. All across the baybeyond Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored andchained. And northward were the broad floating stages that received theaeroplanes. Aeroplanes fell out of the sky every afternoon, each bringingits thousands of pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of the earth toCapri and its delights. All these things, I say, stretched below. 

"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight thatevening had to show. Five war aeroplanes that had long slumbered uselessin the distant arsenals of the Rhine-mouth were manoeuvring now in theeastward sky. Gresham had astonished the world by producing them andothers, and sending them to circle here and there. It was the threatmaterial in the great game of bluff he was playing, and it had taken evenme by surprise. He was one of those incredibly stupid energetic people whoseem sent by heaven to create disasters. His energy to the first glanceseemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no imagination, noinvention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith inhis stupid idiot 'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood outupon the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how Iweighed the full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way things must_go_. And then even it was not too late. I might have gone back, Ithink, and saved the world. The people of the north would follow me, Iknew, granted only that in one thing I respected their moral standards. The east and south would trust me as they would trust no other northernman. And I knew I had only to put it to her and she would have let mego... Not because she did not love me!

"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. I had sonewly thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still so fresh arenegade from duty that the daylight clearness of what I _ought_ todo had no power at all to touch my will. My will was to live, to gatherpleasures, and make my dear lady happy. But though this sense of vastneglected duties had no power to draw me, it could make me silent andpreoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half their brightness androused me into dark meditations in the silence of the night. And as Istood and watched Gresham's aeroplanes sweep to and fro--those birds ofinfinite ill omen--she stood beside me, watching me, perceiving thetrouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly--her eyes questioning myface, her expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was grey because thesunset was fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she heldme. She had asked me to go from her, and again in the night-time and withtears she had asked me to go. 

"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I turnedupon her suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain slopes. 'No, ' she said, as if I jarred with her gravity, but I was resolved to endthat gravity and made her run--no one can be very grey and sad who is outof breath---and when she stumbled I ran with my hand beneath her arm. Weran down past a couple of men, who turned back staring in astonishment atmy behaviour--they must have recognised my face. And half-way down theslope came a tumult in the air--clang-clank, clang-clank--and we stopped, and presently over the hill-crest those war things came flying one behindthe other. "

The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description. 

"What were, they like?" I asked. 

"They had never fought, " he said. "They were just like our ironclads arenowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might do, withexcited men inside them; few even cared to speculate. They were greatdriving things shaped like spear-heads without a shaft, with a propellerin the place of the shaft. "

"Steel?"

"Not steel. "

"Aluminium?"

"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as common asbrass, for example. It was called--let me see--" He squeezed his foreheadwith the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting everything, " he said. 

"And they carried guns?"

"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the beak. Thatwas the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No one couldtell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose it was veryfine to go whirling through the air like a flight of young swallows, swiftand easy. I guess the captains tried not to think too clearly what thereal thing would be like. And these flying war machines, you know, wereonly one sort of the endless war contrivances that had been invented andhad fallen into abeyance during the long peace. There were all sorts ofthese things that people were routing out and furbishing up; infernalthings, silly things; things that had never been tried; big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way of these ingenioussort of men who make these things; they turn 'em out as beavers builddams, and with no more sense of the rivers they're going to divert and thelands they're going to flood!

"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again in the twilight Iforesaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things were driving forwar in Gresham's silly, violent hands, and I had some inkling of what warwas bound to be under these new conditions. And even then, though I knewit was drawing near the limit of my opportunity, I could find no will togo back. "

He sighed. 

"That was my last chance. 

"We did not go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we walkedout upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counselled me to go back. 

"'My dearest, ' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, 'this isDeath. This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, go back to yourduty--'

"She began to weep, saying between her sobs, and clinging to my arm as shesaid it, 'Go back--go back. '

"Then suddenly she fell mute, and glancing down at her face, I read in aninstant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments whenone _sees_. 

"'No!' I said. 

"'No?' she asked, in surprise, and I think a little fearful at the answerto her thought. 

"'Nothing, ' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. Love, Ihave chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens, I will live thislife--I will live for _you_! It--nothing shall turn me aside;nothing, my dear one. Even if you died--even if you died--'

"'Yes?' she murmured, softly. 

"'Then--I also would die. '

"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently--asI _could_ do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make the life wewere living seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was desertingsomething hard and enormously ignoble that it was a fine thing to setaside. I bent all my mind to throw that glamour upon it, seeking not onlyto convert her but myself to that. We talked, and she clung to me, torntoo between all that she deemed noble and all that she knew was sweet. Andat last I did make it heroic, made all the thickening disaster of theworld only a sort of glorious setting to our unparalleled love, and we twopoor foolish souls strutted there at last, clad in that splendid delusion, drunken rather with that glorious delusion, under the still stars. 

"And so my moment passed. 

"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders ofthe south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot answer thatshattered Gresham's bluffing for ever took shape and waited. And all overAsia, and the ocean, and the south, the air and the wires were throbbingwith their warnings to prepare--prepare. 

"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, withall these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe mostpeople still believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms and shoutingcharges and triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when half the worlddrew its food-supply from regions ten thousand miles away----"

The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face wasintent on the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, a string ofloaded trucks, a signal-box, and the back of a cottage shot by thecarriage window, and a bridge passed with a clap of noise, echoing thetumult of the train. 

"After that, " he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights thatdream was my life. And the worst of it was there were nights when I couldnot dream, when I lay tossing on a bed in _this_ accursed life; and_there_--somewhere lost to me--things were happening--momentous, terrible things... I lived at nights--my days, my waking days, this lifeI am living now, became a faded, far-away dream, a drab setting, the coverof the book. "

He thought. 

"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, but as towhat I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not remember. Mymemory--my memory has gone. The business of life slips from me--"

He leant forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long time hesaid nothing. 

"And then?" said I. 

"The war burst like a hurricane. "

He stared before him at unspeakable things. 

"And then?" I urged again. 

"One touch of unreality, " he said, in the low tone of a man who speaks tohimself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they were notnightmares--they were not nightmares. _No_!"

He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was a dangerof losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking again in the sametone of questioning self-communion. 

"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touchCapri--I had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrastto it all; but two nights after the whole place was shouting and bawling, every woman almost and every other man wore a badge--Gresham's badge--andthere was no music but a jangling war-song over and over again, andeverywhere men enlisting, and in the dancing halls they were drilling. Thewhole island was a-whirl with rumours; it was said again and again, thatfighting had begun. I had not expected this. I had seen so little of thelife of pleasure that I had failed to reckon with this violence of theamateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like a man who might haveprevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. I was no one; thevainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. The crowd jostledus and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened us; a womanshrieked at my lady because no badge was on her, and we two went back toour own place again, ruffled and insulted--my lady white and silent, and Ia-quiver with rage. So furious was I, I could have quarrelled with her ifI could have found one shade of accusation in her eyes. 

"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock cell, and outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward that flaredand passed and came again. 

"'We must get out of this place, ' I said over and over. 'I have made mychoice, and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will have nothing ofthis war. We have taken our lives out of all these things. This is norefuge for us. Let us go. '

"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered theworld. 

"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight. "

He mused darkly. 

"How much was there of it?"

He made no answer. 

"How many days?"

His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took no heedof my curiosity. 

I tried to draw him back to his story with questions. 

"Where did you go?" I said. 

"When?"

"When you left Capri. "

"South-west, " he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went in aboat. "

"But I should have thought an aeroplane?"

"They had been seized. "

I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning again. Hebroke out in an argumentative monotone:

"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and stress, _is_ life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? If there_is_ no refuge, if there is no place of peace, and if all our dreamsof quiet places are a folly and a snare, why have we such dreams? Surelyit was no ignoble cravings, no base intentions, had brought us to this; itwas love had isolated us. Love had come to me with her eyes and robed inher beauty, more glorious than all else in life, in the very shape andcolour of life, and summoned me away. I had silenced all the voices, I hadanswered all the questions--I had come to her. And suddenly there wasnothing but War and Death!"

I had an inspiration. "After all, " I said, "it could have been only adream. "

"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when, even now--"

For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into his cheek. He raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped it to his knee. Hespoke, looking away from me, and for all the rest of the time he lookedaway. "We are but phantoms, " he said, "and the phantoms of phantoms, desires like cloud shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the wind; thedays pass, use and wont carry us through as a train carries the shadow ofits lights--so be it? But one thing is real and certain, one thing is nodream stuff, but eternal and enduring. It is the centre of my life, andall other things about it are subordinate or altogether vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and I are dead together!

"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life withunappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for and cared forworthless and unmeaning?

"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still achance of getting away, " he said. "All through the night and morning thatwe sailed across the sea from Capri to Salerno we talked of escape. Wewere full of hope, and it clung about us to the end, hope for the lifetogether we should lead, out of it all, out of the battle and struggle, the wild and empty passions, the empty, arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thoushalt not' of the world. We were uplifted, as though our quest was a holything, as though love for one another was a mission... 

"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock Capri--already scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and hiding-places thatwere to make it a fastness--we reckoned nothing of the imminent slaughter, though the fury of preparation hung about in puffs and clouds of dust at ahundred points amidst the grey; but, indeed, I made a text of that andtalked. There, you know, was the rock, still beautiful for all its scars, with its countless windows and arches and ways, tier upon tier, for athousand feet, a vast carving of grey, broken by vine-clad terraces, andlemon and orange groves, and masses of agave and prickly pear, and puffsof almond blossom. And out under the archway that is built over thePiccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round the cape andwithin sight of the mainland, another little string of boats came intoview, driving before the wind towards the south-west. In a little while amultitude had come out, the remoter just little specks of ultramarine inthe shadow of the eastward cliff. 

"'It is love and reason, ' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness of war. '

"And though we presently saw a squadron of aeroplanes flying across thesouthern sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots inthe sky--and then more, dotting the south-eastern horizon, and then stillmore, until all that quarter of the sky was stippled with blue specks. Nowthey were all thin little strokes of blue, and now one and now a multitudewould heel and catch the sun and become short flashes of light. They came, rising and falling and growing larger, like some huge flight of gulls orrooks or such-like birds, moving with a marvellous uniformity, and ever asthey drew nearer they spread over a greater width of sky. The southwardwing flung itself in an arrow-headed cloud athwart the sun. And thensuddenly they swept round to the eastward and streamed eastward, growingsmaller and smaller and clearer and clearer again until they vanished fromthe sky. And after that we noted to the northward, and very high, Gresham's fighting machines hanging high over Naples like an evening swarmof gnats. 

"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds. 

"Even the mutter of guns far away in the south-east seemed to us tosignify nothing... 

"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seekingthat refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, painand many distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our toilsometramping, and half starved, and with the horror of the dead men we hadseen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of fightingswept up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it stillresulted only in a deepening resolution to escape. Oh, but she was braveand patient! She who had never faced hardship and exposure had courage forherself--and me. We went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country allcommandeered and ransacked by the gathering hosts of war. Always we wenton foot. At first there were other fugitives, but we did not mingle withthem. Some escaped northward, some were caught in the torrent of peasantrythat swept along the main roads; many gave themselves into the hands ofthe soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the men were impressed. Butwe kept away from these things; we had brought no money to bribe a passagenorth, and I feared for my lady at the hands of these conscript crowds. Wehad landed at Salerno, and we had been turned back from Cava, and we hadtried to cross towards Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but we hadbeen driven back for want of food, and so we had come down among themarshes by Paestum, where those great temples stand alone. I had somevague idea that by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat orsomething, and take once more to sea. And there it was the battle overtookus. 

"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were beinghemmed in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in its toils. Many times we had seen the levies that had come down from the north goingto and fro, and had come upon them in the distance amidst the mountainsmaking ways for the ammunition and preparing the mounting of the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us, taking us for spies--at any rate ashot had gone shuddering over us. Several times we had hidden in woodsfrom hovering aeroplanes. 

"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight andpain... We were in an open place near those great temples at Paestum, atlast, on a blank stony place dotted with spiky bushes, empty and desolateand so flat that a grove of eucalyptus far away showed to the feet of itsstems. How I can see it! My lady was sitting down under a bush resting alittle, for she was very weak and weary, and I was standing up watching tosee if I could tell the distance of the firing that came and went. Theywere still, you know, fighting far from each other, with these terriblenew weapons that had never before been used: guns that would carry beyondsight, and aeroplanes that would do----What _they_ would do no mancould foretell. 

"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew together. I knew we were in danger, and that we could not stop there and rest!

"Though all those things were in my mind, they were in the background. They seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking ofmy lady. An aching distress filled me. For the first time she had ownedherself beaten and had fallen a-weeping. Behind me I could hear hersobbing, but I would not turn round to her because I knew she had need ofweeping, and had held herself so far and so long for me. It was well, Ithought, that she would weep and rest, and then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing that hung so near. Even now I can seeher as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her shoulder, can mark againthe deepening hollow of her cheek. 

"'If we had parted, ' she said, 'if I had let you go--'

"'No, ' said I. 'Even now I do not repent. I will not repent; I made mychoice, and I will hold on to the end. '

"And then--

"Overhead in the sky flashed something and burst, and all about us I heardthe bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. Theychipped the stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks andpassed... "

He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips. 

"At the flash I had turned about... 

"You know--she stood up--

"She stood up, you know, and moved a step towards me--

"As though she wanted to reach me--

"And she had been shot through the heart. "

He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity anEnglishman feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and thenstared out of the window. For a long space we kept silence. When at last Ilooked at him he was sitting back in his corner, his arms folded and histeeth gnawing at his knuckles. 

He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it. 

"I carried her, " he said, "towards the temples, in my arms--as though itmattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know, they had lasted so long, I suppose. 

"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her--all the way. "

Silence again. 

"I have seen those temples, " I said abruptly, and indeed he had broughtthose still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me. 

"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillarand held her in my arms... Silent after the first babble was over. Andafter a little while the lizards came out and ran about again, as thoughnothing unusual was going on, as though nothing had changed... It wastremendously still there, the sun high and the shadows still; even theshadows of the weeds upon the entablature were still--in spite of thethudding and banging that went all about the sky. 

"I seem to remember that the aeroplanes came up out of the south, and thatthe battle went away to the west. One aeroplane was struck, and oversetand fell. I remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. Itdidn't seem to signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping fora time in the water. I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a blackthing in the bright blue water. 

"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. Each time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. That was all the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed thestone hard by--made just a fresh bright surface. 

"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater. 

"The curious thing, " he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes atrivial conversation, "is that I didn't _think_--I didn't think atall. I sat with her in my arms amidst the stones--in a sort of lethargy--stagnant. 

"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. Iknow I found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in frontof me, and how I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing thatin reality I was sitting, stunned, in that Paestum Temple with a deadwoman in my arms. I read my letters like a machine. I have forgotten whatthey were about. "

He stopped, and there was a long silence. 

Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk Farmto Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with abrutal question with the tone of "Now or never. "

"And did you dream again?"

"Yes. "

He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low. 

"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to havesuddenly awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sittingposition, and the body lay there on the stones beside me. A gaunt body. Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her... 

"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men werecoming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage. 

"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came intosight--first one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirtywhite, trimmed with blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of theold wall of the vanished city, and crouching there. They were littlebright figures in the sunlight, and there they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before them. 

"And further away I saw others, and then more at another point in thewall. It was a long lax line of men in open order. 

"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, andhis men came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds towards thetemple. He scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing towardsme, and when he saw me he stopped. 

"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I hadseen they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. Ishouted to the officer. 

"'You must not come here, ' I cried, '_I_ am here. I am here with mydead. '

"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown tongue. 

"I repeated what I had said. 

"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently hespoke to his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword. 

"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told himagain very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are oldtemples, and I am here with my dead. '

"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrowface, with dull grey eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on hisupper lip, and he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting unintelligiblethings, questions perhaps, at me. 

"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not occurto me. As I tried to explain to him he interrupted me in imperious tones, bidding me, I suppose, stand aside. 

"He made to go past me, and I caught hold of him. 

"I saw his face change at my grip. 

"'You fool, ' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'

"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. 

"I saw a sort of exultant resolve leap into them--delight. Then suddenly, with a scowl, he swept his sword back--_so_--and thrust. "

He stopped abruptly. 

I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the train. The brakes liftedtheir voices and the carriage jarred and jerked. This present worldinsisted upon itself, became clamorous. I saw through the steamy windowhuge electric lights glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows ofstationary empty carriages passing by, and then a signal-box, hoisting itsconstellation of green and red into the murky London twilight, marchedafter them. I looked again at his drawn features. 

"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--no fear, no pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the sworddrive home into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt at all. "

The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing firstrapidly, then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of menpassed to and fro without. 

"Euston!" cried a voice. 

"Do you mean--?"

"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darknesssweeping over everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face of theman who had killed me, seemed to recede. It swept out of existence--"

"Euston!" clamoured the voices outside; "Euston!"

The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stoodregarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter ofcab-horses, and behind these things the featureless remote roar of theLondon cobble-stones, came to my ears. A truck-load of lighted lampsblazed along the platform. 

"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted outall things. "

"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter. 

"And that was the end?" I asked. 

He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "_No_. "

"You mean?"

"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the temple--And then--"

"Yes, " I insisted. "Yes?"

"Nightmares, " he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds thatfought and tore. "

 XXVI. 

 THE VALLEY OF SPIDERS. 

Towards mid-day the three pursuers came abruptly round a bend in thetorrent bed upon the sight of a very broad and spacious valley. Thedifficult and winding trench of pebbles along which they had tracked thefugitives for so long expanded to a broad slope, and with a common impulsethe three men left the trail, and rode to a little eminence set witholive-dun trees, and there halted, the two others, as became them, alittle behind the man with the silver-studded bridle. 

For a space they scanned the great expanse below them with eager eyes. Itspread remoter and remoter, with only a few clusters of sere thorn busheshere and there, and the dim suggestions of some now waterless ravine tobreak its desolation of yellow grass. Its purple distances melted at lastinto the bluish slopes of the further hills--hills it might be of agreener kind--and above them, invisibly supported, and seeming indeed tohang in the blue, were the snow-clad summits of mountains--that grewlarger and bolder to the northwestward as the sides of the valley drewtogether. And westward the valley opened until a distant darkness underthe sky told where the forests began. But the three men looked neithereast nor west, but only steadfastly across the valley. 

The gaunt man with the scarred lip was the first to speak. "Nowhere, " hesaid, with a sigh of disappointment in his voice. "But, after all, theyhad a full day's start. "

"They don't know we are after them, " said the little man on the whitehorse. 

"_She_ would know, " said the leader bitterly, as if speaking tohimself. 

"Even then they can't go fast. They've got no beast but the mule, and allto-day the girl's foot has been bleeding----"

The man with the silver bridle flashed a quick intensity of rage on him. "Do you think I haven't seen that?" he snarled. 

"It helps, anyhow, " whispered the little man to himself. 

The gaunt man with the scarred lip stared impassively. "They can't be overthe valley, " he said. "If we ride hard----"

He glanced at the white horse and paused. 

"Curse all white horses!" said the man with the silver bridle, and turnedto scan the beast his curse included. 

The little man looked down between the melancholy ears of his steed. 

"I did my best, " he said. 

The two others stared again across the valley for a space. The gaunt manpassed the back of his hand across the scarred lip. 

"Come up!" said the man who owned the silver bridle, suddenly. The littleman started and jerked his rein, and the horse hoofs of the three made amultitudinous faint pattering upon the withered grass as they turned backtowards the trail... 

They rode cautiously down the long slope before them, and so came througha waste of prickly twisted bushes and strange dry shapes of thornybranches that grew amongst the rocks, into the levels below. And there thetrail grew faint, for the soil was scanty, and the only herbage was thisscorched dead straw that lay upon the ground. Still, by hard scanning, byleaning beside the horses' necks and pausing ever and again, even thesewhite men could contrive to follow after their prey. 

There were trodden places, bent and broken blades of the coarse grass, andever and again the sufficient intimation of a footmark. And once theleader saw a brown smear of blood where the half-caste girl may have trod. And at that under his breath he cursed her for a fool. 

The gaunt man checked his leader's tracking, and the little man on thewhite horse rode behind, a man lost in a dream. They rode one afteranother, the man with the silver bridle led the way, and they spoke nevera word. After a time it came to the little man on the white horse that theworld was very still. He started out of his dream. Besides the littlenoises of their horses and equipment, the whole great valley kept thebrooding quiet of a painted scene. 

Before him went his master and his fellow, each intently leaning forwardto the left, each impassively moving with the paces of his horse; theirshadows went before them--still, noiseless, tapering attendants; andnearer a crouched cool shape was his own. He looked about him. What was ithad gone? Then he remembered the reverberation from the banks of the gorgeand the perpetual accompaniment of shifting, jostling pebbles. And, moreover----? There was no breeze. That was it! What a vast, still placeit was, a monotonous afternoon slumber! And the sky open and blank exceptfor a sombre veil of haze that had gathered in the upper valley. 

He straightened his back, fretted with his bridle, puckered his lips towhistle, and simply sighed. He turned in his saddle for a time, and staredat the throat of the mountain gorge out of which they had come. Blank!Blank slopes on either side, with never a sign of a decent beast or tree--much less a man. What a land it was! What a wilderness! He dropped againinto his former pose. 

It filled him with a momentary pleasure to see a wry stick of purple blackflash out into the form of a snake, and vanish amidst the brown. Afterall, the infernal valley _was_ alive. And then, to rejoice him stillmore, came a little breath across his face, a whisper that came and went, the faintest inclination of a stiff black-antlered bush upon a littlecrest, the first intimations of a possible breeze. Idly he wetted hisfinger, and held it up. 

He pulled up sharply to avoid a collision with the gaunt man, who hadstopped at fault upon the trail. Just at that guilty moment he caught hismaster's eye looking towards him. 

For a time he forced an interest in the tracking. Then, as they rode onagain, he studied his master's shadow and hat and shoulder, appearing anddisappearing behind the gaunt man's nearer contours. They had ridden fourdays out of the very limits of the world into this desolate place, shortof water, with nothing but a strip of dried meat under their saddles, overrocks and mountains, where surely none but these fugitives had ever beenbefore--for _that_!

And all this was for a girl, a mere wilful child! And the man had wholecityfuls of people to do his basest bidding--girls, women! Why in the nameof passionate folly _this_ one in particular? asked the little man, and scowled at the world, and licked his parched lips with a blackenedtongue. It was the way of the master, and that was all he knew. Justbecause she sought to evade him... 

His eye caught a whole row of high-plumed canes bending in unison, andthen the tails of silk that hung before his neck flapped and fell. Thebreeze was growing stronger. Somehow it took the stiff stillness out ofthings--and that was well. 

"Hullo!" said the gaunt man. 

All three stopped abruptly. 

"What?" asked the master. "What?"

"Over there, " said the gaunt man, pointing up the valley. 

"What?"

"Something coming towards us. "

And as he spoke a yellow animal crested a rise and came bearing down uponthem. It was a big wild dog, coming before the wind, tongue out, at asteady pace, and running with such an intensity of purpose that he did notseem to see the horsemen he approached. He ran with his nose up, following, it was plain, neither scent nor quarry. As he drew nearer thelittle man felt for his sword. "He's mad, " said the gaunt rider. 

"Shout!" said the little man, and shouted. 

The dog came on. Then when the little man's blade was already out, itswerved aside and went panting by them and passed. The eyes of the littleman followed its flight. "There was no foam, " he said. For a space the manwith the silver-studded bridle stared up the valley. "Oh, come on!" hecried at last. "What does it matter?" and jerked his horse into movementagain. 

The little man left the insoluble mystery of a dog that fled from nothingbut the wind, and lapsed into profound musings on human character. "Comeon!" he whispered to himself. "Why should it be given to one man to say'Come on!' with that stupendous violence of effect? Always, all his life, the man with the silver bridle has been saying that. If _I_ saidit--!" thought the little man. But people marvelled when the master wasdisobeyed even in the wildest things. This half-caste girl seemed to him, seemed to every one, mad--blasphemous almost. The little man, by way ofcomparison, reflected on the gaunt rider with the scarred lip, as stalwartas his master, as brave and, indeed, perhaps braver, and yet for him therewas obedience, nothing but to give obedience duly and stoutly... 

Certain sensations of the hands and knees called the little man back tomore immediate things. He became aware of something. He rode up beside hisgaunt fellow. "Do you notice the horses?" he said in an undertone. 

The gaunt face looked interrogation. 

"They don't like this wind, " said the little man, and dropped behind asthe man with the silver bridle turned upon him. 

"It's all right, " said the gaunt-faced man. 

They rode on again for a space in silence. The foremost two rode downcastupon the trail, the hindmost man watched the haze that crept down thevastness of the valley, nearer and nearer, and noted how the wind grew instrength moment by moment. Far away on the left he saw a line of darkbulks--wild hog, perhaps, galloping down the valley, but of that he saidnothing, nor did he remark again upon the uneasiness of the horses. 

And then he saw first one and then a second great white ball, a greatshining white ball like a gigantic head of thistledown, that drove beforethe wind athwart the path. These balls soared high in the air, and droppedand rose again and caught for a moment, and hurried on and passed, but atthe sight of them the restlessness of the horses increased. 

Then presently he saw that more of these drifting globes--and then soonvery many more--were hurrying towards him down the valley. 

They became aware of a squealing. Athwart the path a huge boar rushed, turning his head but for one instant to glance at them, and then hurlingon down the valley again. And at that all three stopped and sat in theirsaddles, staring into the thickening haze that was coming upon them. 

"If it were not for this thistle-down--" began the leader. 

But now a big globe came drifting past within a score of yards of them. Itwas really not an even sphere at all, but a vast, soft, ragged, filmything, a sheet gathered by the corners, an aerial jelly-fish, as it were, but rolling over and over as it advanced, and trailing long cobwebbythreads and streamers that floated in its wake. 

"It isn't thistle-down, " said the little man. 

"I don't like the stuff, " said the gaunt man. 

And they looked at one another. 

"Curse it!" cried the leader. "The air's full of lit up there. If it keepson at this pace long, it will stop us altogether. "

An instinctive feeling, such as lines out a herd of deer at the approachof some ambiguous thing, prompted them to turn their horses to the wind, ride forward for a few paces, and stare at that advancing multitude offloating masses. They came on before the wind with a sort of smoothswiftness, rising and falling noiselessly, sinking to earth, reboundinghigh, soaring--all with a perfect unanimity, with a still, deliberateassurance. 

Right and left of the horsemen the pioneers of this strange army passed. At one that rolled along the ground, breaking shapelessly and trailing outreluctantly into long grappling ribbons and bands, all three horses beganto shy and dance. The master was seized with a sudden, unreasonableimpatience. He cursed the drifting globes roundly. "Get on!" he cried;"get on! What do these things matter? How _can_ they matter? Back tothe trail!" He fell swearing at his horse and sawed the bit across itsmouth. 

He shouted aloud with rage. "I will follow that trail, I tell you, " hecried. "Where is the trail?"

He gripped the bridle of his prancing horse and searched amidst the grass. A long and clinging thread fell across his face, a grey streamer droppedabout his bridle arm, some big, active thing with many legs ran down theback of his head. He looked up to discover one of those grey massesanchored as it were above him by these things and flapping out ends as asail flaps when a boat comes about--but noiselessly. 

He had an impression of many eyes, of a dense crew of squat bodies, oflong, many-jointed limbs hauling at their mooring ropes to bring the thingdown upon him. For a space he stared up, reining in his prancing horsewith the instinct born of years of horsemanship. Then the flat of a swordsmote his back, and a blade flashed overhead and cut the drifting balloonof spider-web free, and the whole mass lifted softly and drove clear andaway. 

"Spiders!" cried the voice of the gaunt man. "The things are full of bigspiders! Look, my lord!"

The man with the silver bridle still followed the mass that drove away. 

"Look, my lord!"

The master found himself staring down at a red smashed thing on the groundthat, in spite of partial obliteration, could still wriggle unavailinglegs. Then, when the gaunt man pointed to another mass that bore down uponthem, he drew his sword hastily. Up the valley now it was like a fog banktorn to rags. He tried to grasp the situation. 

"Ride for it!" the little man was shouting. "Ride for it down the valley. "

What happened then was like the confusion of a battle. The man with thesilver bridle saw the little man go past him, slashing furiously atimaginary cobwebs, saw him cannon into the horse of the gaunt man and hurlit and its rider to earth. His own horse went a dozen paces before hecould rein it in. Then he looked up to avoid imaginary dangers, and thenback again to see a horse rolling on the ground, the gaunt man standingand slashing over it at a rent and fluttering mass of grey that streamedand wrapped about them both. And thick and fast as thistle-down on wasteland on a windy day in July the cobweb masses were coming on. 

The little man had dismounted, but he dared not release his horse. He wasendeavouring to lug the struggling brute back with the strength of onearm, while with the other he slashed aimlessly. The tentacles of a secondgrey mass had entangled themselves with the struggle, and this second greymass came to its moorings, and slowly sank. 

The master set his teeth, gripped his bridle, lowered his head, andspurred his horse forward. The horse on the ground rolled over, there wasblood and moving shapes upon the flanks, and the gaunt man suddenlyleaving it, ran forward towards his master, perhaps ten paces. His legswere swathed and encumbered with grey; he made ineffectual movements withhis sword. Grey streamers waved from him; there was a thin veil of greyacross his face. With his left hand he beat at something on his body, andsuddenly he stumbled and fell. He struggled to rise, and fell again, andsuddenly, horribly, began to howl, "Oh--ohoo, ohooh!"

The master could see the great spiders upon him, and others upon theground. 

As he strove to force his horse nearer to this gesticulating, screaminggrey object that struggled up and down, there came a clatter of hoofs, andthe little man, in act of mounting, swordless, balanced on his bellyathwart the white horse, and clutching its mane, whirled past. And again aclinging thread of grey gossamer swept across the master's face. All abouthim, and over him, it seemed this drifting, noiseless cobweb circled anddrew nearer him... 

To the day of his death he never knew just how the event of that momenthappened. Did he, indeed, turn his horse, or did it really of its ownaccord stampede after its fellow? Suffice it that in another second he wasgalloping full tilt down the valley with his sword whirling furiouslyoverhead. And all about him on the quickening breeze, the spiders'air-ships, their air bundles and air sheets, seemed to him to hurry in aconscious pursuit. 

Clatter, clatter, thud, thud, --the man with the silver bridle rode, heedless of his direction, with his fearful face looking up now right, nowleft, and his sword arm ready to slash. And a few hundred yards ahead ofhim, with a tail of torn cobweb trailing behind him, rode the little manon the white horse, still but imperfectly in the saddle. The reeds bentbefore them, the wind blew fresh and strong, over his shoulder the mastercould see the webs hurrying to overtake... 

He was so intent to escape the spiders' webs that only as his horsegathered together for a leap did he realise the ravine ahead. And then herealised it only to misunderstand and interfere. He was leaning forward onhis horse's neck and sat up and back all too late. 

But if in his excitement he had failed to leap, at any rate he had notforgotten how to fall. He was horseman again in mid-air. He came off clearwith a mere bruise upon his shoulder, and his horse rolled, kickingspasmodic legs, and lay still. But the master's sword drove its point intothe hard soil, and snapped clean across, as though Chance refused him anylonger as her Knight, and the splintered end missed his face by an inch orso. 

He was on his feet in a moment, breathlessly scanning the on-rushingspider-webs. For a moment he was minded to run, and then thought of theravine, and turned back. He ran aside once to dodge one drifting terror, and then he was swiftly clambering down the precipitous sides, and out ofthe touch of the gale. 

There, under the lee of the dry torrent's steeper banks, he might crouchand watch these strange, grey masses pass and pass in safety till the windfell, and it became possible to escape. And there for a long time hecrouched, watching the strange, grey, ragged masses trail their streamersacross his narrowed sky. 

Once a stray spider fell into the ravine close beside him--a full foot itmeasured from leg to leg and its body was half a man's hand--and after hehad watched its monstrous alacrity of search and escape for a little whileand tempted it to bite his broken sword, he lifted up his iron-heeled bootand smashed it into a pulp. He swore as he did so, and for a time soughtup and down for another. 

Then presently, when he was surer these spider swarms could not drop intothe ravine, he found a place where he could sit down, and sat and fellinto deep thought and began, after his manner, to gnaw his knuckles andbite his nails. And from this he was moved by the coming of the man withthe white horse. 

He heard him long before he saw him, as a clattering of hoofs, stumblingfootsteps, and a reassuring voice. Then the little man appeared, a ruefulfigure, still with a tail of white cobweb trailing behind him. Theyapproached each other without speaking, without a salutation. The littleman was fatigued and shamed to the pitch of hopeless bitterness, and cameto a stop at last, face to face with his seated master. The latter winceda little under his dependent's eye. "Well?" he said at last, with nopretence of authority. 

"You left him?"

"My horse bolted. "

"I know. So did mine. "

He laughed at his master mirthlessly. 

"I say my horse bolted, " said the man who once had a silver-studdedbridle. 

"Cowards both, " said the little man. 

The other gnawed his knuckle through some meditative moments, with his eyeon his inferior. 

"Don't call me a coward, " he said at length. 

"You are a coward, like myself. "

"A coward possibly. There is a limit beyond which every man must fear. That I have learnt at last. But not like yourself. That is where thedifference comes in. "

"I never could have dreamt you would have left him. He saved your life twominutes before... Why are you our lord?"

The master gnawed his knuckles again, and his countenance was dark. 

"No man calls me a coward, " he said. "No ... A broken sword is betterthan none ... One spavined white horse cannot be expected to carry twomen a four days' journey. I hate white horses, but this time it cannot behelped. You begin to understand me? I perceive that you are minded, on thestrength of what you have seen and fancy, to taint my reputation. It ismen of your sort who unmake kings. Besides which--I never liked you. "

"My lord!" said the little man. 

"No, " said the master. "_No!_"

He stood up sharply as the little man moved. For a minute perhaps theyfaced one another. Overhead the spiders' balls went driving. There was aquick movement among the pebbles; a running of feet, a cry of despair, agasp and a blow... 

Towards nightfall the wind fell. The sun set in a calm serenity, and theman who had once possessed the silver bridle came at last very cautiouslyand by an easy slope out of the ravine again; but now he led the whitehorse that once belonged to the little man. He would have gone back to hishorse to get his silver-mounted bridle again, but he feared night and aquickening breeze might still find him in the valley, and besides, hedisliked greatly to think he might discover his horse all swathed incobwebs and perhaps unpleasantly eaten. 

And as he thought of those cobwebs, and of all the dangers he had beenthrough, and the manner in which he had been preserved that day, his handsought a little reliquary that hung about his neck, and he clasped it fora moment with heartfelt gratitude. As he did so his eyes went across thevalley. 

"I was hot with passion, " he said, "and now she has met her reward. Theyalso, no doubt--"

And behold! far away out of the wooded slopes across the valley, but inthe clearness of the sunset, distinct and unmistakable, he saw a littlespire of smoke. 

At that his expression of serene resignation changed to an amazed anger. Smoke? He turned the head of the white horse about, and hesitated. And ashe did so a little rustle of air went through the grass about him. Faraway upon some reeds swayed a tattered sheet of grey. He looked at thecobwebs; he looked at the smoke. 

"Perhaps, after all, it is not them, " he said at last. 

But he knew better. 

After he had stared at the smoke for some time, he mounted the whitehorse. 

As he rode, he picked his way amidst stranded masses of web. For somereason there were many dead spiders on the ground, and those that livedfeasted guiltily on their fellows. At the sound of his horse's hoofs theyfled. 

Their time had passed. From the ground, without either a wind to carrythem or a winding-sheet ready, these things, for all their poison, coulddo him little evil. 

He flicked with his belt at those he fancied came too near. Once, where anumber ran together over a bare place, he was minded to dismount andtrample them with his boots, but this impulse he overcame. Ever and againhe turned in his saddle, and looked back at the smoke. 

"Spiders, " he muttered over and over again. "Spiders. Well, well... Thenext time I must spin a web. "

 XXVII. 

 THE NEW ACCELERATOR. 

Certainly, if ever a man found a guinea when he was looking for a pin, itis my good friend Professor Gibberne. I have heard before of investigatorsovershooting the mark, but never quite to the extent that he has done. Hehas really, this time at any rate, without any touch of exaggeration in thephrase, found something to revolutionise human life. And that when he wassimply seeking an all-round nervous stimulant to bring languid people upto the stresses of these pushful days. I have tasted the stuff now severaltimes, and I cannot do better than describe the effect the thing had onme. That there are astonishing experiences in store for all in search ofnew sensations will become apparent enough. 

Professor Gibberne, as many people know, is my neighbour in Folkestone. Unless my memory plays me a trick, his portrait at various ages hasalready appeared in _The Strand Magazine_--think late in 1899 but Iam unable to look it up because I have lent that volume to someone who hasnever sent it back. The reader may, perhaps, recall the high forehead andthe singularly long black eyebrows that give such a Mephistophelean touchto his face. He occupies one of those pleasant little detached houses inthe mixed style that make the western end of the Upper Sandgate Road sointeresting. His is the one with the Flemish gables and the Moorishportico, and it is in the little room with the mullioned bay window thathe works when he is down here, and in which of an evening we have so oftensmoked and talked together. He is a mighty jester, but, besides, he likesto talk to me about his work; he is one of those men who find a help andstimulus in talking, and so I have been able to follow the conception ofthe New Accelerator right up from a very early stage. Of course, thegreater portion of his experimental work is not done in Folkestone, but inGower Street, in the fine new laboratory next to the hospital that he hasbeen the first to use. 

As every one knows, or at least as all intelligent people know, thespecial department in which Gibberne has gained so great and deserved areputation among physiologists is the action of drugs upon the nervoussystem. Upon soporifics, sedatives, and anaesthetics he is, I am told, unequalled. He is also a chemist of considerable eminence, and I supposein the subtle and complex jungle of riddles that centres about theganglion cell and the axis fibre there are little cleared places of hismaking, little glades of illumination, that, until he sees fit to publishhis results, are still inaccessible to every other living man. And in thelast few years he has been particularly assiduous upon this question ofnervous stimulants, and already, before the discovery of the NewAccelerator, very successful with them. Medical science has to thank himfor at least three distinct and absolutely safe invigorators of unrivalledvalue to practising men. In cases of exhaustion the preparation known asGibberne's B Syrup has, I suppose, saved more lives already than anylifeboat round the coast. 

"But none of these little things begin to satisfy me yet, " he told menearly a year ago. "Either they increase the central energy withoutaffecting the nerves, or they simply increase the available energy bylowering the nervous conductivity; and all of them are unequal and localin their operation. One wakes up the heart and viscera and leaves thebrain stupefied, one gets at the brain champagne fashion, and does nothinggood for the solar plexus, and what I want--and what, if it's an earthlypossibility, I mean to have--is a stimulant that stimulates all round, that wakes you up for a time from the crown of your head to the tip ofyour great toe, and makes you go two--or even three--to everybody else'sone. Eh? That's the thing I'm after. "

"It would tire a man, " I said. 

"Not a doubt of it. And you'd eat double or treble--and all that. But justthink what the thing would mean. Imagine yourself with a little phial likethis"--he held up a little bottle of green glass and marked his pointswith it--"and in this precious phial is the power to think twice as fast, move twice as quickly, do twice as much work in a given time as you couldotherwise do. "

"But is such a thing possible?"

"I believe so. If it isn't, I've wasted my time for a year. These variouspreparations of the hypophosphites, for example, seem to show thatsomething of the sort... Even if it was only one and a half times as fastit would do. "

"It _would_ do, " I said. 

"If you were a statesman in a corner, for example, time rushing up againstyou, something urgent to be done, eh?"

"He could dose his private secretary, " I said. 

"And gain--double time. And think if _you_, for example, wanted tofinish a book. "

"Usually, " I said, "I wish I'd never begun 'em. "

"Or a doctor, driven to death, wants to sit down and think out a case. Ora barrister--or a man cramming for an examination. "

"Worth a guinea a drop, " said I, "and more--to men like that. "

"And in a duel, again, " said Gibberne, "where it all depends on yourquickness in pulling the trigger. "

"Or in fencing, " I echoed. 

"You see, " said Gibberne, "if I get it as an all-round thing, it willreally do you no harm at all--except perhaps to an infinitesimal degree itbrings you nearer old age. You will just have lived twice to otherpeople's once--"

"I suppose, " I meditated, "in a duel--it would be fair?"

"That's a question for the seconds, " said Gibberne. 

I harked back further. "And you really think such a thing _is_possible?" I said. 

"As possible, " said Gibberne, and glanced at something that went throbbingby the window, "as a motor-bus. As a matter of fact--"

He paused and smiled at me deeply, and tapped slowly on the edge of hisdesk with the green phial. "I think I know the stuff... Already I've gotsomething coming. " The nervous smile upon his face betrayed the gravity ofhis revelation. He rarely talked of his actual experimental work unlessthings were very near the end. "And it may be, it may be--I shouldn't besurprised--it may even do the thing at a greater rate than twice. "

"It will be rather a big thing, " I hazarded. 

"It will be, I think, rather a big thing. "

But I don't think he quite knew what a big thing it was to be, for allthat. 

I remember we had several talks about the stuff after that. "The NewAccelerator" he called it, and his tone about it grew more confident oneach occasion. Sometimes he talked nervously of unexpected physiologicalresults its use might have, and then he would get a little unhappy; atothers he was frankly mercenary, and we debated long and anxiously how thepreparation might be turned to commercial account. "It's a good thing, "said Gibberne, "a tremendous thing. I know I'm giving the world something, and I think it only reasonable we should expect the world to pay. Thedignity of science is all very well, but I think somehow I must have themonopoly of the stuff for, say, ten years. I don't see why _all_ thefun in life should go to the dealers in ham. "

My own interest in the coming drug certainly did not wane in the time. Ihave always had a queer little twist towards metaphysics in my mind. Ihave always been given to paradoxes about space and time, and it seemed tome that Gibberne was really preparing no less than the absoluteacceleration of life. Suppose a man repeatedly dosed with such apreparation: he would live an active and record life indeed, but he wouldbe an adult at eleven, middle-aged at twenty-five, and by thirty well onthe road to senile decay. It seemed to me that so far Gibberne was onlygoing to do for any one who took his drug exactly what Nature has done forthe Jews and Orientals, who are men in their teens and aged by fifty, andquicker in thought and act than we are all the time. The marvel of drugshas always been great to my mind; you can madden a man, calm a man, makehim incredibly strong and alert or a helpless log, quicken this passionand allay that, all by means of drugs, and here was a new miracle to beadded to this strange armoury of phials the doctors use! But Gibberne wasfar too eager upon his technical points to enter very keenly into myaspect of the question. 

It was the 7th or 8th of August when he told me the distillation thatwould decide his failure or success for a time was going forward as wetalked, and it was on the 10th that he told me the thing was done and theNew Accelerator a tangible reality in the world. I met him as I was goingup the Sandgate Hill towards Folkestone--I think I was going to get myhair cut, and he came hurrying down to meet me--I suppose he was coming tomy house to tell me at once of his success. I remember that his eyes wereunusually bright and his face flushed, and I noted even then the swiftalacrity of his step. 

"It's done, " he cried, and gripped my hand, speaking very fast; "it's morethan done. Come up to my house and see. "

"Really?"

"Really!" he shouted. "Incredibly! Come up and see. "

"And it does--twice?"

"It does more, much more. It scares me. Come up and see the stuff. Tasteit! Try it! It's the most amazing stuff on earth. " He gripped my arm and;walking at such a pace that he forced me into a trot, went shouting withme up the hill. A whole _char-à-banc_-ful of people turned and staredat us in unison after the manner of people in _chars-à-banc_. It wasone of those hot, clear days that Folkestone sees so much of, every colourincredibly bright and every outline hard. There was a breeze, of course, but not so much breeze as sufficed under these conditions to keep me cooland dry. I panted for mercy. 

"I'm not walking fast, am I?" cried Gibberne, and slackened his pace to aquick march. 

"You've been taking some of this stuff, " I puffed. 

"No, " he said. "At the utmost a drop of water that stood in a beaker fromwhich I had washed out the last traces of the stuff. I took some lastnight, you know. But that is ancient history now. "

"And it goes twice?" I said, nearing his doorway in a gratefulperspiration. 

"It goes a thousand times, many thousand times!" cried Gibberne, with adramatic gesture, flinging open his Early English carved oak gate. 

"Phew!" said I, and followed him to the door. 

"I don't know how many times it goes, " he said, with his latch-key in hishand. 

"And you----"

"It throws all sorts of light on nervous physiology, it kicks the theoryof vision into a perfectly new shape! ... Heaven knows how many thousandtimes. We'll try all that after----The thing is to try the stuff now. "

"Try the stuff?" I said, as we went along the passage. 

"Rather, " said Gibberne, turning on me in his study. "There it is in thatlittle green phial there! Unless you happen to be afraid?"

I am a careful man by nature, and only theoretically adventurous. I_was_ afraid. But on the other hand, there is pride. 

"Well, " I haggled. "You say you've tried it?"

"I've tried it, " he said, "and I don't look hurt by it, do I? I don't evenlook livery, and I _feel_----"

I sat down. "Give me the potion, " I said. "If the worst comes to theworst it will save having my hair cut, and that, I think, is one of themost hateful duties of a civilised man. How do you take the mixture?"

"With water, " said Gibberne, whacking down a carafe. 

He stood up in front of his desk and regarded me in his easy-chair; hismanner was suddenly affected by a touch of the Harley Street specialist. "It's rum stuff, you know, " he said. 

I made a gesture with my hand. 

"I must warn you, in the first place, as soon as you've got it down toshut your eyes, and open them very cautiously in a minute or so's time. One still sees. The sense of vision is a question of length of vibration, and not of multitude of impacts; but there's a kind of shock to theretina, a nasty giddy confusion just at the time if the eyes are open. Keep 'em shut. "

"Shut, " I said. "Good!"

"And the next thing is, keep still. Don't begin to whack about. You mayfetch something a nasty rap if you do. Remember you will be going severalthousand times faster than you ever did before, heart, lungs, muscles, brain--everything--and you will hit hard without knowing it. You won'tknow it, you know. You'll feel just as you do now. Only everything in theworld will seem to be going ever so many thousand times slower than itever went before. That's what makes it so deuced queer. "

"Lor, " I said. "And you mean----"

"You'll see, " said he, and took up a little measure. He glanced at thematerial on his desk. "Glasses, " he said, "water. All here. Mustn't taketoo much for the first attempt. "

The little phial glucked out its precious contents. "Don't forget what Itold you, " he said, turning the contents of the measure into a glass inthe manner of an Italian waiter measuring whisky. "Sit with the eyestightly shut and in absolute stillness for two minutes, " he said. "Thenyou will hear me speak. "

He added an inch or so of water to the little dose in each glass. 

"By-the-by, " he said, "don't put your glass down. Keep it in your hand andrest your hand on your knee. Yes--so. And now----"

He raised his glass. 

"The New Accelerator, " I said. 

"The New Accelerator, " he answered, and we touched glasses and drank, andinstantly I closed my eyes. 

You know that blank non-existence into which one drops when one has taken"gas. " For an indefinite interval it was like that. Then I heard Gibbernetelling me to wake up, and I stirred and opened my eyes. There he stood ashe had been standing, glass still in hand. It was empty, that was all thedifference. 

"Well?" said I. 

"Nothing out of the way?"

"Nothing. A slight feeling of exhilaration, perhaps. Nothing more. "

"Sounds?"

"Things are still, " I said. "By Jove! yes! They _are_ still. Exceptthe sort of faint pat, patter, like rain falling on different things. Whatis it?"

"Analysed sounds, " I think he said, but I am not sure. He glanced at thewindow. "Have you ever seen a curtain before a window fixed in that waybefore?"

I followed his eyes, and there was the end of the curtain, frozen, as itwere, corner high, in the act of flapping briskly in the breeze. 

"No, " said I; "that's odd. "

"And here, " he said, and opened the hand that held the glass. Naturally Iwinced, expecting the glass to smash. But so far from smashing, it did noteven seem to stir; it hung in mid-air--motionless. "Roughly speaking, "said Gibberne, "an object in these latitudes falls 16 feet in the firstsecond. This glass is falling 16 feet in a second now. Only, you see, ithasn't been falling yet for the hundredth part of a second. That gives yousome idea of the pace of my Accelerator. "

And he waved his hand round and round, over and under the slowly sinkingglass. Finally he took it by the bottom, pulled it down and placed it verycarefully on the table. "Eh?" he said to me, and laughed. 

"That seems all right, " I said, and began very gingerly to raise myselffrom my chair. I felt perfectly well, very light and comfortable, andquite confident in my mind. I was going fast all over. My heart, forexample, was beating a thousand times a second, but that caused me nodiscomfort at all. I looked out of the window. An immovable cyclist, headdown and with a frozen puff of dust behind his driving-wheel, scorched toovertake a galloping _char-à-banc_ that did not stir. I gaped inamazement at this incredible spectacle. "Gibberne, " I cried, "how longwill this confounded stuff last?"

"Heaven knows!" he answered. "Last time I took it I went to bed and sleptit off. I tell you, I was frightened. It must have lasted some minutes, Ithink--it seemed like hours. But after a bit it slows down rathersuddenly, I believe. "

I was proud to observe that I did not feel frightened--I suppose becausethere were two of us. "Why shouldn't we go out?" I asked. 

"Why not?"

"They'll see us. "

"Not they. Goodness, no! Why, we shall be going a thousand times fasterthan the quickest conjuring trick that was ever done. Come along! Whichway shall we go? Window, or door?"

And out by the window we went. 

Assuredly of all the strange experiences that I have ever had, orimagined, or read of other people having or imagining, that little raid Imade with Gibberne on the Folkestone Leas, under the influence of the NewAccelerator, was the strangest and maddest of all. We went out by his gateinto the road, and there we made a minute examination of the statuesquepassing traffic. The tops of the wheels and some of the legs of the horsesof this _char-à-banc, _ the end of the whip-lash and the lower jaw ofthe conductor--who was just beginning to yawn--were perceptibly in motion, but all the rest of the lumbering conveyance seemed still. And quitenoiseless except for a faint rattling that came from one man's throat. Andas parts of this frozen edifice there were a driver, you know, and aconductor, and eleven people! The effect as we walked about the thingbegan by being madly queer and ended by being--disagreeable. There theywere, people like ourselves and yet not like ourselves, frozen in carelessattitudes, caught in mid-gesture. A girl and a man smiled at one another, a leering smile that threatened to last for evermore; a woman in a floppycapelline rested her arm on the rail and stared at Gibberne's house withthe unwinking stare of eternity; a man stroked his moustache like a figureof wax, and another stretched a tiresome stiff hand with extended fingerstowards his loosened hat. We stared at them, we laughed at them, we madefaces at them, and then a sort of disgust of them came upon us, and weturned away and walked round in front of the cyclist towards the Leas. 

"Goodness!" cried Gibberne, suddenly; "look there!"

He pointed, and there at the tip of his finger and sliding down the airwith wings flapping slowly and at the speed of an exceptionally languidsnail--was a bee. 

And so we came out upon the Leas. There the thing seemed madder than ever. The band was playing in the upper stand, though all the sound it made forus was a low-pitched, wheezy rattle, a sort of prolonged last sigh thatpassed at times into a sound like the slow, muffled ticking of somemonstrous clock. Frozen people stood erect, strange, silent, self-conscious-looking dummies hung unstably in mid-stride, promenadingupon the grass. I passed close to a little poodle dog suspended in the actof leaping, and watched the slow movement of his legs as he sank to earth. "Lord, look _here_!" cried Gibberne, and we halted for a momentbefore a magnificent person in white faint--striped flannels, white shoes, and a Panama hat, who turned back to wink at two gaily dressed ladies hehad passed. A wink, studied with such leisurely deliberation as we couldafford, is an unattractive thing. It loses any quality of alert gaiety, and one remarks that the winking eye does not completely close, that underits drooping lid appears the lower edge of an eyeball and a little line ofwhite. "Heaven give me memory, " said I, "and I will never wink again. "

"Or smile, " said Gibberne, with his eye on the lady's answering teeth. 

"It's infernally hot, somehow, " said I, "Let's go slower. "

"Oh, come along!" said Gibberne. 

We picked our way among the bath-chairs in the path. Many of the peoplesitting in the chairs seemed almost natural in their passive poses, butthe contorted scarlet of the bandsmen was not a restful thing to see. Apurple-faced little gentleman was frozen in the midst of a violentstruggle to refold his newspaper against the wind; there were manyevidences that all these people in their sluggish way were exposed to aconsiderable breeze, a breeze that had no existence so far as oursensations went. We came out and walked a little way from the crowd, andturned and regarded it. To see all that multitude changed to a picture, smitten rigid, as it were, into the semblance of realistic wax, wasimpossibly wonderful. It was absurd, of course; but it filled me with anirrational, an exultant sense of superior advantage. Consider the wonderof it! All that I had said, and thought, and done since the stuff hadbegun to work in my veins had happened, so far as those people, so far asthe world in general went, in the twinkling of an eye. "The NewAccelerator----" I began, but Gibberne interrupted me. 

"There's that infernal old woman!" he said. 

"What old woman?"

"Lives next door to me, " said Gibberne. "Has a lapdog that yaps. Gods! Thetemptation is strong!"

There is something very boyish and impulsive about Gibberne at times. Before I could expostulate with him he had dashed forward, snatched theunfortunate animal out of visible existence, and was running violentlywith it towards the cliff of the Leas. It was most extraordinary. Thelittle brute, you know, didn't bark or wriggle or make the slightest signof vitality. It kept quite stiffly in an attitude of somnolent repose, andGibberne held it by the neck. It was like running about with a dog ofwood. "Gibberne, " I cried, "put it down!" Then I said something else. "Ifyou run like that, Gibberne, " I cried, "you'll set your clothes on fire. Your linen trousers are going brown as it is!"

He clapped his hand on his thigh and stood hesitating on the verge. "Gibberne, " I cried, coming up, "put it down. This heat is too much! It'sour running so! Two or three miles a second! Friction of the air!"

"What?" he said, glancing at the dog. 

"Friction of the air, " I shouted. "Friction of the air. Going too fast. Like meteorites and things. Too hot. And, Gibberne! Gibberne! I'm all overpricking and a sort of perspiration. You can see people stirring slightly. I believe the stuff's working off! Put that dog down. "

"Eh?" he said. 

"It's working off, " I repeated. "We're too hot and the stuff's workingoff! I'm wet through. "

He stared at me, then at the band, the wheezy rattle of whose performancewas certainly going faster. Then with a tremendous sweep of the arm hehurled the dog away from him and it went spinning upward, still inanimate, and hung at last over the grouped parasols of a knot of chattering people. Gibberne was gripping my elbow. "By Jove!" he cried, "I believe itis! A sort of hot pricking and--yes. That man's moving hispocket-handkerchief! Perceptibly. We must get out of this sharp. "

But we could not get out of it sharply enough. Luckily, perhaps! For wemight have run, and if we had run we should, I believe, have burst intoflames. Almost certainly we should have burst into flames! You know we hadneither of us thought of that... But before we could even begin to runthe action of the drug had ceased. It was the business of a minutefraction of a second. The effect of the New Accelerator passed like thedrawing of a curtain, vanished in the movement of a hand. I heardGibberne's voice in infinite alarm. "Sit down, " he said, and flop, downupon the turf at the edge of the Leas I sat--scorching as I sat. There isa patch of burnt grass there still where I sat down. The whole stagnationseemed to wake up as I did so, the disarticulated vibration of the bandrushed together into a blast of music, the promenaders put their feet downand walked their ways, the papers and flags began flapping, smiles passedinto words, the winker finished his wink and went on his way complacently, and all the seated people moved and spoke. 

The whole world had come alive again, was going as fast as we were, orrather we were going no faster than the rest of the world. It was likeslowing down as one comes into a railway station. Everything seemed tospin round for a second or two, I had the most transient feeling ofnausea, and that was all. And the little dog, which had seemed to hang fora moment when the force of Gibberne's arm was expended, fell with a swiftacceleration clean through a lady's parasol!

That was the saving of us. Unless it was for one corpulent old gentlemanin a bath-chair, who certainly did start at the sight of us, andafterwards regarded us at intervals with a darkly suspicious eye, and, finally, I believe, said something to his nurse about us, I doubt if asolitary person remarked our sudden appearance among them. Plop! We musthave appeared abruptly. We ceased to smoulder almost at once, though theturf beneath me was uncomfortably hot. The attention of every one--including even the Amusements' Association band, which on this occasion, for the only time in its history, got out of tune--was arrested by theamazing fact, and the still more amazing yapping and uproar caused by thefact, that a respectable, over-fed lapdog sleeping quietly to the east ofthe bandstand should suddenly fall through the parasol of a lady on thewest--in a slightly singed condition due to the extreme velocity of itsmovements through the air. In these absurd days, too, when we are alltrying to be as psychic, and silly, and superstitious as possible! Peoplegot up and trod on other people, chairs were overturned, the Leaspoliceman ran. How the matter settled itself I do not know--we were muchtoo anxious to disentangle ourselves from the affair and get out of rangeof the eye of the old gentleman in the bath-chair to make minuteinquiries. As soon as we were sufficiently cool and sufficiently recoveredfrom our giddiness and nausea and confusion of mind to do so we stood up, and skirting the crowd, directed our steps back along the road below theMetropole towards Gibberne's house. But amidst the din I heard verydistinctly the gentleman who had been sitting beside the lady of theruptured sunshade using quite unjustifiable threats and language to one ofthose chair-attendants who have "Inspector" written on their caps: "If youdidn't throw the dog, " he said, "who _did_?"

The sudden return of movement and familiar noises, and our natural anxietyabout ourselves (our clothes were still dreadfully hot, and the fronts ofthe thighs of Gibberne's white trousers were scorched a drabbish brown), prevented the minute observations I should have liked to make on all thesethings. Indeed, I really made no observations of any scientific value onthat return. The bee, of course, had gone. I looked for that cyclist, buthe was already out of sight as we came into the Upper Sandgate Road orhidden from us by traffic; the _char-à-banc_, however, with itspeople now all alive and stirring, was clattering along at a spanking pacealmost abreast of the nearer church. 

We noted, however, that the window-sill on which we had stepped in gettingout of the house was slightly singed, and that the impressions of our feeton the gravel of the path were unusually deep. 

So it was I had my first experience of the New Accelerator. Practically wehad been running about and saying and doing all sorts of things in thespace of a second or so of time. We had lived half an hour while the bandhad played, perhaps, two bars. But the effect it had upon us was that thewhole world had stopped for our convenient inspection. Considering allthings, and particularly considering our rashness in venturing out of thehouse, the experience might certainly have been much more disagreeablethan it was. It showed, no doubt, that Gibberne has still much to learnbefore his preparation is a manageable convenience, but its practicabilityit certainly demonstrated beyond all cavil. 

Since that adventure he has been steadily bringing its use under control, and I have several times, and without the slightest bad result, takenmeasured doses under his direction; though I must confess I have not yetventured abroad again while under its influence. I may mention, forexample, that this story has been written at one sitting and withoutinterruption, except for the nibbling of some chocolate, by its means. Ibegan at 6. 25, and my watch is now very nearly at the minute past thehalf-hour. The convenience of securing a long, uninterrupted spell of workin the midst of a day full of engagements cannot be exaggerated. Gibberneis now working at the quantitative handling of his preparation, withespecial reference to its distinctive effects upon different types ofconstitution. He then hopes to find a Retarder, with which to dilute itspresent rather excessive potency. The Retarder will, of course, have thereverse effect to the Accelerator; used alone it should enable the patientto spread a few seconds over many hours of ordinary time, and so tomaintain an apathetic inaction, a glacier-like absence of alacrity, amidstthe most animated or irritating surroundings. The two things together mustnecessarily work an entire revolution in civilised existence. It is thebeginning of our escape from that Time Garment of which Carlyle speaks. While this Accelerator will enable us to concentrate ourselves withtremendous impact upon any moment or occasion that demands our utmostsense and vigour, the Retarder will enable us to pass in passivetranquillity through infinite hardship and tedium. Perhaps I am a littleoptimistic about the Retarder, which has indeed still to be discovered, but about the Accelerator there is no possible sort of doubt whatever. Itsappearance upon the market in a convenient, controllable, and assimilableform is a matter of the next few months. It will be obtainable of allchemists and druggists, in small green bottles, at a high but, consideringits extraordinary qualities, by no means excessive price. Gibberne'sNervous Accelerator it will be called, and he hopes to be able to supplyit in three strengths: one in 200, one in 900, and one in 2000, distinguished by yellow, pink, and white labels respectively. 

No doubt its use renders a great number of very extraordinary thingspossible; for, of course, the most remarkable and, possibly, even criminalproceedings may be effected with impunity by thus dodging, as it were, into the interstices of time. Like all potent preparations, it will beliable to abuse. We have, however, discussed this aspect of the questionvery thoroughly, and we have decided that this is purely a matter ofmedical jurisprudence and altogether outside our province. We shallmanufacture and sell the Accelerator, and as for the consequences--weshall see. 

 XXVIII. 

 THE TRUTH ABOUT PYECRAFT. 

He sits not a dozen yards away. If I glance over my shoulder I can seehim. And if I catch his eye--and usually I catch his eye--it meets me withan expression----

It is mainly an imploring look--and yet with suspicion in it. 

Confound his suspicion! If I wanted to tell on him I should have told longago. I don't tell and I don't tell, and he ought to feel at his ease. Asif anything so gross and fat as he could feel at ease! Who would believeme if I did tell?

Poor old Pyecraft! Great, uneasy jelly of substance! The fattest clubmanin London. 

He sits at one of the little club tables in the huge bay by the fire, stuffing. What is he stuffing? I glance judiciously, and catch him bitingat a round of hot buttered teacake, with his eyes on me. Confound him!--with his eyes on me!

That settles it, Pyecraft! Since you _will_ be abject, since you_will_ behave as though I was not a man of honour, here, right underyour embedded eyes, I write the thing down--the plain truth aboutPyecraft. The man I helped, the man I shielded, and who has requited me bymaking my club unendurable, absolutely unendurable, with his liquidappeal, with the perpetual "don't tell" of his looks. 

And, besides, why does he keep on eternally eating?

Well, here goes for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

Pyecraft----. I made the acquaintance of Pyecraft in this verysmoking-room. I was a young, nervous new member, and he saw it. I wassitting all alone, wishing I knew more of the members, and suddenly hecame, a great rolling front of chins and abdomina, towards me, andgrunted and sat down in a chair close by me and wheezed for a space, andscraped for a space with a match and lit a cigar, and then addressed me. I forget what he said--something about the matches not lighting properly, and afterwards as he talked he kept stopping the waiters one by one asthey went by, and telling them about the matches in that thin, flutyvoice he has. But, anyhow, it was in some such way we began our talking. 

He talked about various things and came round to games. And thence to myfigure and complexion. "_You_ ought to be a good cricketer, " he said. I suppose I am slender, slender to what some people would call lean, and Isuppose I am rather dark, still----I am not ashamed of having a Hindugreat-grandmother, but, for all that, I don't want casual strangers to seethrough me at a glance to _her_. So that I was set against Pyecraftfrom the beginning. 

But he only talked about me in order to get to himself. 

"I expect, " he said, "you take no more exercise than I do, and probablyyou eat no less. " (Like all excessively obese people he fancied he atenothing. ) "Yet"--and he smiled an oblique smile--"we differ. "

And then he began to talk about his fatness and his fatness; all he didfor his fatness and all he was going to do for his fatness; what peoplehad advised him to do for his fatness and what he had heard of peopledoing for fatness similar to his. "_A priori_, " he said, "one wouldthink a question of nutrition could be answered by dietary and a questionof assimilation by drugs. " It was stifling. It was dumpling talk. It mademe feel swelled to hear him. 

One stands that sort of thing once in a way at a club, but a time camewhen I fancied I was standing too much. He took to me altogether tooconspicuously. I could never go into the smoking-room but he would comewallowing towards me, and sometimes he came and gormandised round andabout me while I had my lunch. He seemed at times almost to be clinging tome. He was a bore, but not so fearful a bore as to be limited to me andfrom the first there was something in his manner--almost as though heknew, almost as though he penetrated to the fact that I _might_--thatthere was a remote, exceptional chance in me that no one else presented. 

"I'd give anything to get it down, " he would say--"anything, " and peer atme over his vast cheeks and pant. Poor old Pyecraft! He has just gonged;no doubt to order another buttered teacake!

He came to the actual thing one day. "Our Pharmacopoeia, " he said, "ourWestern Pharmacopoeia, is anything but the last word of medical science. In the East, I've been told----"

He stopped and stared at me. It was like being at an aquarium. 

I was quite suddenly angry with him. "Look here, " I said, "who told youabout my great-grandmother's recipes?"

"Well, " he fenced. 

"Every time we've met for a week, " I said--"and we've met pretty often--you've given me a broad hint or so about that little secret of mine. "

"Well, " he said, "now the cat's out of the bag, I'll admit, yes, it is so. I had it----"

"From Pattison?"

"Indirectly, " he said, which I believe was lying, "yes. "

"Pattison, " I said, "took that stuff at his own risk. " He pursed his mouthand bowed. 

"My great-grandmother's recipes, " I said, "are queer things to handle. Myfather was near making me promise----"

"He didn't?"

"No. But he warned me. He himself used one--once. "

"Ah! ... But do you think----? Suppose--suppose there did happen to beone----"

"The things are curious documents, " I said. "Even the smell of 'em ... No!"

But after going so far Pyecraft was resolved I should go farther. I wasalways a little afraid if I tried his patience too much he would fall onme suddenly and smother me. I own I was weak. But I was also annoyed withPyecraft. I had got to that state of feeling for him that disposed me tosay, "Well, _take_ the risk!" The little affair of Pattison to whichI have alluded was a different matter altogether. What it was doesn'tconcern us now, but I knew, anyhow, that the particular recipe I used thenwas safe. The rest I didn't know so much about, and, on the whole, I wasinclined to doubt their safety pretty completely. 

Yet even if Pyecraft got poisoned----

I must confess the poisoning of Pyecraft struck me as an immenseundertaking. 

That evening I took that queer, odd-scented sandal-wood box out of mysafe, and turned the rustling skins over. The gentleman who wrote therecipes for my great-grandmother evidently had a weakness for skins of amiscellaneous origin, and his handwriting was cramped to the last degree. Some of the things are quite unreadable to me--though my family, with itsIndian Civil Service associations, has kept up a knowledge of Hindustanifrom generation to generation--and none are absolutely plain sailing. ButI found the one that I knew was there soon enough, and sat on the floor bymy safe for some time looking at it. 

"Look here, " said I to Pyecraft next day, and snatched the slip away fromhis eager grasp. 

"So far as I can make it out, this is a recipe for Loss of Weight. ("Ah!"said Pyecraft. ) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think it's that. And if youtake my advice you'll leave it alone. Because, you know--I blacken myblood in your interest, Pyecraft--my ancestors on that side were, so faras I can gather, a jolly queer lot. See?"

"Let me try it, " said Pyecraft. 

I leant back in my chair. My imagination made one mighty effort and fellflat within me. "What in Heaven's name, Pyecraft, " I asked, "do you thinkyou'll look like when you get thin?"

He was impervious to reason, I made him promise never to say a word to meabout his disgusting fatness again whatever happened--never, and then Ihanded him that little piece of skin. 

"It's nasty stuff, " I said. 

"No matter, " he said, and took it. 

He goggled at it. "But--but--" he said

He had just discovered that it wasn't English. 

"To the best of my ability, " I said, "I will do you a translation. "

I did my best. After that we didn't speak for a fortnight. Whenever heapproached me I frowned and motioned him away, and he respected ourcompact, but at the end of the fortnight he was as fat as ever. And thenhe got a word in. 

"I must speak, " he said, "It isn't fair. There's something wrong. It'sdone me no good. You're not doing your great-grandmother justice. "

"Where's the recipe?"

He produced it gingerly from his pocket-book. 

I ran my eye over the items. "Was the egg addled?" I asked. 

"No. Ought it to have been?"

"That, " I said, "goes without saying in all my poor deargreat-grandmother's recipes. When condition or quality is not specifiedyou must get the worst. She was drastic or nothing... And there's one ortwo possible alternatives to some of these other things. You got _fresh_rattlesnake venom?"

"I got a rattlesnake from Jamrach's. It cost--it cost----"

"That's your affair anyhow. This last item----"

"I know a man who----"

"Yes. H'm. Well, I'll write the alternatives down. So far as I know thelanguage, the spelling of this recipe is particularly atrocious. By-the-by, dog here probably means pariah dog. "

For a month after that I saw Pyecraft constantly at the club and as fatand anxious as ever. He kept our treaty, but at times he broke the spiritof it by shaking his head despondently. Then one day in the cloakroom hesaid, "Your great-grandmother----"

"Not a word against her, " I said; and he held his peace. 

I could have fancied he had desisted, and I saw him one day talking tothree new members about his fatness as though he was in search of otherrecipes. And then, quite unexpectedly, his telegram came. 

"Mr. Formalyn!" bawled a page-boy under my nose, and I took the telegramand opened it at once. 

"_For Heaven's sake come_. --_Pyecraft_. "

"H'm, " said I, and to tell the truth I was so pleased at therehabilitation of my great-grandmother's reputation this evidentlypromised that I made a most excellent lunch. 

I got Pyecraft's address from the hall porter. Pyecraft inhabited theupper half of a house in Bloomsbury, and I went there so soon as I haddone my coffee and Trappistine. I did not wait to finish my cigar. 

"Mr. Pyecraft?" said I, at the front door. 

They believed he was ill; he hadn't been out for two days. 

"He expects me, " said I, and they sent me up. 

I rang the bell at the lattice-door upon the landing. 

"He shouldn't have tried it, anyhow, " I said to myself. "A man who eatslike a pig ought to look like a pig. "

An obviously worthy woman, with an anxious face and a carelessly placedcap, came and surveyed me through the lattice. 

I gave my name and she let me in in a dubious fashion. 

"Well?" said I, as we stood together inside Pyecraft's piece of thelanding. 

"'E said you was to come in if you came, " she said, and regarded me, making no motion to show me anywhere. And then, confidentially, "'E'slocked in, sir. "

"Locked in?"

"Locked 'imself in yesterday morning and 'asn't let any one in since, sir. And ever and again _swearing_. Oh, my!"

I stared at the door she indicated by her glances. "In there?" I said. 

"Yes, sir. "

"What's up?"

She shook her head sadly. "'E keeps on calling for vittles, sir. '_Eavy_ vittles 'e wants. I get 'im what I can. Pork 'e's had, sooitpuddin', sossiges, noo bread. Everythink like that. Left outside, if youplease, and me go away. 'E's eatin', sir, somethink _awful_. "

There came a piping bawl from inside the door: "That Formalyn?"

"That you, Pyecraft?" I shouted, and went and banged the door. 

"Tell her to go away. "

I did. 

Then I could hear a curious pattering upon the door, almost like some onefeeling for the handle in the dark, and Pyecraft's familiar grunts. 

"It's all right, " I said, "she's gone. "

But for a long time the door didn't open. 

I heard the key turn. Then Pyecraft's voice said, "Come in. "

I turned the handle and opened the door. Naturally I expected to seePyecraft. 

Well, you know, he wasn't there!

I never had such a shock in my life. There was his sitting-room in a stateof untidy disorder, plates and dishes among the books and writing things, and several chairs overturned, but Pyecraft----

"It's all right, old man; shut the door, " he said, and then I discoveredhim. 

There he was, right up close to the cornice in the corner by the door, asthough some one had glued him to the ceiling. His face was anxious andangry. He panted and gesticulated. "Shut the door, " he said. "If thatwoman gets hold of it----"

I shut the door, and went and stood away from him and stared. 

"If anything gives way and you tumble down, " I said, "you'll break yourneck, Pyecraft. "

"I wish I could, " he wheezed. 

"A man of your age and weight getting up to kiddish gymnastics----"

"Don't, " he said, and looked agonised. 

"I'll tell you, " he said, and gesticulated. 

"How the deuce, " said I, "are you holding on up there?"

And then abruptly I realised that he was not holding on at all, that hewas floating up there--just as a gas-filled bladder might have floated inthe same position. He began a struggle to thrust himself away from theceiling and to clamber down the wall to me. "It's that prescription, " hepanted, as he did so. "Your great-gran----"

He took hold of a framed engraving rather carelessly as he spoke and itgave way, and he flew back to the ceiling again, while the picture smashedon to the sofa. Bump he went against the ceiling, and I knew then why hewas all over white on the more salient curves and angles of his person. Hetried again more carefully, coming down by way of the mantel. 

It was really a most extraordinary spectacle, that great, fat, apoplectic-looking man upside down and trying to get from the ceilingto the floor. "That prescription, " he said. "Too successful. "

"How?"

"Loss of weight--almost complete. "

And then, of course, I understood. 

"By Jove, Pyecraft, " said I, "what you wanted was a cure for fatness! Butyou always called it weight. You would call it weight. "

Somehow I was extremely delighted. I quite liked Pyecraft for the time. "Let me help you!" I said, and took his hand and pulled him down. Hekicked about, trying to get foothold somewhere. It was very like holding aflag on a windy day. 

"That table, " he said, pointing, "is solid mahogany and very heavy. If youcan put me under that----"

I did, and there he wallowed about like a captive balloon, while I stoodon his hearthrug and talked to him. 

I lit a cigar. "Tell me, " I said, "what happened?"

"I took it, " he said. 

"How did it taste?"

"Oh, _beastly_!"

I should fancy they all did. Whether one regards the ingredients orthe probable compound or the possible results, almost all mygreat-grandmother's remedies appear to me at least to be extraordinarilyuninviting. For my own part----

"I took a little sip first. "

"Yes?"

"And as I felt lighter and better after an hour, I decided to take thedraught. "

"My dear Pyecraft!"

"I held my nose, " he explained. "And then I kept on getting lighter andlighter--and helpless, you know. "

He gave way suddenly to a burst of passion. "What the goodness am I to_do?_" he said. 

"There's one thing pretty evident, " I said, "that you mustn't do. If yougo out of doors you'll go up and up. " I waved an arm upward. "They'd haveto send Santos-Dumont after you to bring you down again. "

"I suppose it will wear off?"

I shook my head. "I don't think you can count on that, " I said. 

And then there was another burst of passion, and he kicked out at adjacentchairs and banged the floor. He behaved just as I should have expected agreat, fat, self-indulgent man to behave under trying circumstances--thatis to say, very badly. He spoke of me and of my great-grandmother with anutter want of discretion. 

"I never asked you to take the stuff, " I said. 

And generously disregarding the insults he was putting upon me, I sat downin his armchair and began to talk to him in a sober, friendly fashion. 

I pointed out to him that this was a trouble he had brought upon himself, and that it had almost an air of poetical justice. He had eaten too much. This he disputed, and for a time we argued the point. 

He became noisy and violent, so I desisted from this aspect of his lesson. "And then, " said I, "you committed the sin of euphuism. You called it, notFat, which is just and inglorious, but Weight. You----"

He interrupted to say that he recognised all that. What was he to_do?_

I suggested he should adapt himself to his new conditions. So we came tothe really sensible part of the business. I suggested that it would not bedifficult for him to learn to walk about on the ceiling with his hands----

"I can't sleep, " he said. 

But that was no great difficulty. It was quite possible, I pointed out, tomake a shake-up under a wire mattress, fasten the under things on withtapes, and have a blanket, sheet, and coverlet to button at the side. Hewould have to confide in his housekeeper, I said; and after somesquabbling he agreed to that. (Afterwards it was quite delightful to seethe beautifully matter-of-fact way with which the good lady took all theseamazing inversions. ) He could have a library ladder in his room, and allhis meals could be laid on the top of his bookcase. We also hit on aningenious device by which he could get to the floor whenever he wanted, which was simply to put the _British Encyclopaedia_ (tenth edition)on the top of his open shelves. He just pulled out a couple of volumes andheld on, and down he came. And we agreed there must be iron staples alongthe skirting, so that he could cling to those whenever he wanted to getabout the room on the lower level. 

As we got on with the thing I found myself almost keenly interested. Itwas I who called in the housekeeper and broke matters to her, and it was Ichiefly who fixed up the inverted bed. In fact, I spent two whole days athis flat. I am a handy, interfering sort of man with a screw-driver, and Imade all sorts of ingenious adaptations for him--ran a wire to bring hisbells within reach, turned all his electric lights up instead of down, andso on. The whole affair was extremely curious and interesting to me, andit was delightful to think of Pyecraft like some great, fat blow-fly, crawling about on his ceiling and clambering round the lintel of his doorsfrom one room to another, and never, never, never coming to the club anymore... 

Then, you know, my fatal ingenuity got the better of me. I was sitting byhis fire drinking his whisky, and he was up in his favourite corner by thecornice, tacking a Turkey carpet to the ceiling, when the idea struck me. "By Jove, Pyecraft!" I said, "all this is totally unnecessary. "

And before I could calculate the complete consequences of my notion Iblurted it out. "Lead underclothing, " said I, and the mischief was done. 

Pyecraft received the thing almost in tears. "To be right ways upagain----" he said. 

I gave him the whole secret before I saw where it would take me. "Buysheet lead, " I said, "stamp it into discs. Sew 'em all over yourunderclothes until you have enough. Have lead-soled boots, carry a bag ofsolid lead, and the thing is done! Instead of being a prisoner here youmay go abroad again, Pyecraft; you may travel----"

A still happier idea came to me. "You need never fear a shipwreck. All youneed do is just slip off some or all of your clothes, take the necessaryamount of luggage in your hand, and float up in the air----"

In his emotion he dropped the tack-hammer within an ace of my head. "ByJove!" he said, "I shall be able to come back to the club again. "

"The thing pulled me up short. By Jove!" I said, faintly. "Yes. Ofcourse--you will. "

He did. He does. There he sits behind me now, stuffing--as I live!--athird go of buttered teacake. And no one in the whole world knows--excepthis housekeeper and me---that he weighs practically nothing; that he is amere boring mass of assimilatory matter, mere clouds in clothing, _niente, nefas_, the most inconsiderable of men. There he sitswatching until I have done this writing. Then, if he can, he will waylayme. He will come billowing up to me... 

He will tell me over again all about it, how it feels, how it doesn'tfeel, how he sometimes hopes it is passing off a little. And alwayssomewhere in that fat, abundant discourse he will say, "The secret'skeeping, eh? If any one knew of it--I should be so ashamed... Makesa fellow look such a fool, you know. Crawling about on a ceiling and allthat... "

And now to elude Pyecraft, occupying, as he does, an admirable strategicposition between me and the door. 

 XXIX. 

 THE MAGIC SHOP. 

I had seen the Magic Shop from afar several times; I had passed it once ortwice, a shop window of alluring little objects, magic balls, magic hens, wonderful cones, ventriloquist dolls, the material of the basket trick, packs of cards that _looked_ all right, and all that sort of thing, but never had I thought of going in until one day, almost without warning, Gip hauled me by my finger right up to the window, and so conductedhimself that there was nothing for it but to take him in. I had notthought the place was there, to tell the truth--a modest-sized frontage inRegent Street, between the picture shop and the place where the chicks runabout just out of patent incubators, --but there it was sure enough. I hadfancied it was down nearer the Circus, or round the corner in OxfordStreet, or even in Holborn; always over the way and a little inaccessibleit had been, with something of the mirage in its position; but here it wasnow quite indisputably, and the fat end of Gip's pointing finger made anoise upon the glass. 

"If I was rich, " said Gip, dabbing a finger at the Disappearing Egg, "I'dbuy myself that. And that"--which was The Crying Baby, Very Human--"andthat, " which was a mystery, and called, so a neat card asserted, "Buy Oneand Astonish Your Friends. "

"Anything, " said Gip, "will disappear under one of those cones. I haveread about it in a book. 

"And there, dadda, is the Vanishing Halfpenny--only they've put it thisway up so's we can't see how it's done. "

Gip, dear boy, inherits his mother's breeding, and he did not propose toenter the shop or worry in any way; only, you know, quite unconsciously, he lugged my finger doorward, and he made his interest clear. 

"That, " he said, and pointed to the Magic Bottle. 

"If you had that?" I said; at which promising inquiry he looked up with asudden radiance. 

"I could show it to Jessie, " he said, thoughtful as ever of others. 

"It's less than a hundred days to your birthday, Gibbles, " I said, andlaid my hand on the door-handle. 

Gip made no answer, but his grip tightened on my finger, and so we cameinto the shop. 

It was no common shop this; it was a magic shop, and all the prancingprecedence Gip would have taken in the matter of mere toys was wanting. Heleft the burthen of the conversation to me. 

It was a little, narrow shop, not very well lit, and the door-bell pingedagain with a plaintive note as we closed it behind us. For a moment orso we were alone and could glance about us. There was a tiger in_papier-mâché_ on the glass case that covered, the low counter--agrave, kind-eyed tiger that waggled his head in a methodical manner; therewere several crystal spheres, a china hand holding magic cards, a stock ofmagic fish-bowls in various sizes, and an immodest magic hat thatshamelessly displayed its springs. On the floor were magic mirrors; one todraw you out long and thin, one to swell your head and vanish your legs, and one to make you short and fat like a draught; and while, we werelaughing at these the shopman, as I suppose, came in. 

At any rate, there he was behind the counter--a curious, sallow, dark man, with one ear larger than the other and a chin like the toe-cap of a boot. 

"What can we have the pleasure?" he said, spreading his long magic fingerson the glass case; and so with a start we were aware of him. 

"I want, " I said, "to buy my little boy a few simple tricks. "

"Legerdemain?" he asked. "Mechanical? Domestic?"

"Anything amusing?" said I. 

"Um!" said the shopman, and scratched his head for a moment as ifthinking. Then, quite distinctly, he drew from his head a glass ball. "Something in this way?" he said, and held it out. 

The action was unexpected. I had seen the trick done at entertainmentsendless times before--it's part of the common stock of conjurers--but Ihad not expected it here. "That's good, " I said, with a laugh. 

"Isn't it?" said the shopman. 

Gip stretched out his disengaged hand to take this object and found merelya blank palm. 

"It's in your pocket, " said the shopman, and there it was!

"How much will that be?" I asked. 

"We make no charge for glass balls, " said the shopman politely. "We getthem"--he picked one out of his elbow as he spoke--"free. " He producedanother from the back of his neck, and laid it beside its predecessor onthe counter. Gip regarded his glass ball sagely, then directed a look ofinquiry at the two on the counter, and finally brought his round-eyedscrutiny to the shopman, who smiled. "You may have those two, " said theshopman, "and, if you _don't_ mind one from my mouth. _So!_"

Gip counselled me mutely for a moment, and then in a profound silence putaway the four balls, resumed my reassuring finger, and nerved himself forthe next event. 

"We get all our smaller tricks in that way, " the shopman remarked. 

I laughed in the manner of one who subscribes to a jest. "Instead of goingto the wholesale shop, " I said. "Of course, it's cheaper. "

"In a way, " the shopman said. "Though we pay in the end. But not soheavily--as people suppose... Our larger tricks, and our daily provisionsand all the other things we want, we get out of that hat... And you know, sir, if you'll excuse my saying it, there _isn't_ a wholesale shop, not for Genuine Magic goods, sir. I don't know if you noticed ourinscription--the Genuine Magic Shop. " He drew a business card from hischeek and handed it to me. "Genuine, " he said, with his finger on theword, and added, "There is absolutely no deception, sir. "

He seemed to be carrying out the joke pretty thoroughly, I thought. 

He turned to Gip with a smile of remarkable affability. "You, you know, are the Right Sort of Boy. "

I was surprised at his knowing that, because, in the interests ofdiscipline, we keep it rather a secret even at home; but Gip received itin unflinching silence, keeping a steadfast eye on him. 

"It's only the Right Sort of Boy gets through that doorway. "

And, as if by way of illustration, there came a rattling at the door, anda squeaking little voice could be faintly heard. "Nyar! I _warn_ 'ago in there, dadda, I WARN 'a go in there. Ny-a-a-ah!" and then theaccents of a downtrodden parent, urging consolations and propitiations. "It's locked, Edward, " he said. 

"But it isn't, " said I. 

"It is, sir, " said the shopman, "always--for that sort of child, " and ashe spoke we had a glimpse of the other youngster, a little, white face, pallid from sweet-eating and over-sapid food, and distorted by evilpassions, a ruthless little egotist, pawing at the enchanted pane. "It'sno good, sir, " said the shopman, as I moved, with my natural helpfulness, doorward, and presently the spoilt child was carried off howling. 

"How do you manage that?" I said, breathing a little more freely. 

"Magic!" said the shopman, with a careless wave of the hand, and behold!sparks of coloured fire flew out of his fingers and vanished into theshadows of the shop. 

"You were saying, " he said, addressing himself to Gip, "before you camein, that you would like one of our 'Buy One and Astonish your Friends'boxes?"

Gip, after a gallant effort, said "Yes. "

"It's in your pocket. "

And leaning over the counter--he really had an extraordinary long body--this amazing person produced the article in the customary conjurer'smanner. "Paper, " he said, and took a sheet out of the empty hat with thesprings; "string, " and behold his mouth was a string box, from which hedrew an unending thread, which when he had tied his parcel he bit off--and, it seemed to me, swallowed the ball of string. And then he lit acandle at the nose of one of the ventriloquist's dummies, stuck one of hisfingers (which had become sealing-wax red) into the flame, and so sealedthe parcel. "Then there was the Disappearing Egg, " he remarked, andproduced one from within my coat-breast and packed it, and also The CryingBaby, Very Human. I handed each parcel to Gip as it was ready, and heclasped them to his chest. 

He said very little, but his eyes were eloquent; the clutch of his armswas eloquent. He was the playground of unspeakable emotions. These, youknow, were _real_ Magics. 

Then, with a start, I discovered something moving about in my hat--something soft and jumpy. I whipped it off, and a ruffled pigeon--no doubta confederate--dropped out and ran on the counter, and went, I fancy, intoa cardboard box behind the _papier-mâché_ tiger. 

"Tut, tut!" said the shopman, dexterously relieving, me of my headdress;"careless bird, and--as I live--nesting!"

He shook my hat, and shook out into his extended hand, two or three eggs, a large marble, a watch, about half a dozen of the inevitable glass balls, and then crumpled, crinkled paper, more and more and more, talking all thetime of the way in which people neglect to brush their hats _inside_as well as out--politely, of course, but with a certain personalapplication. "All sorts of things accumulate, sir... Not _you_, ofcourse, in particular... Nearly every customer... Astonishing what theycarry about with them... " The crumpled paper rose and billowed on thecounter more and more and more, until he was nearly hidden from us, untilhe was altogether hidden, and still his voice went on and on. "We none ofus know what the fair semblance of a human being may conceal, Sir. Are weall then no better than brushed exteriors, whited sepulchres-----"

His voice stopped--exactly like when you hit a neighbour's gramophone witha well-aimed brick, the same instant silence--and the rustle of the paperstopped, and everything was still... 

"Have you done with my hat?" I said, after an interval. 

There was no answer. 

I stared at Gip, and Gip stared at me, and there were our distortions inthe magic mirrors, looking very rum, and grave, and quiet... 

"I think we'll go now, " I said. "Will you tell me how much all this comesto?... 

"I say, " I said, on a rather louder note, "I want the bill; and my hat, please. "

It might have been a sniff from behind the paper pile... 

"Let's look behind the counter, Gip, " I said. "He's making fun of us. "

I led Gip round the head-wagging tiger, and what do you think there wasbehind the counter? No one at all! Only my hat on the floor, and a commonconjurer's lop-eared white rabbit lost in meditation, and looking asstupid and crumpled as only a conjurer's rabbit can do. I resumed my hat, and the rabbit lolloped a lollop or so out of my way. 

"Dadda!" said Gip, in a guilty whisper. 

"What is it, Gip?" said I. 

"I _do_ like this shop, dadda. "

"So should I, " I said to myself, "if the counter wouldn't suddenly extenditself to shut one off from the door. " But I didn't call Gip's attentionto that. "Pussy!" he said, with a hand out to the rabbit as it camelolloping past us; "Pussy, do Gip a magic!" and his eyes followed it as itsqueezed through a door I had certainly not remarked a moment before. Thenthis door opened wider, and the man with one ear larger than the otherappeared again. He was smiling still, but his eye met mine with somethingbetween amusement and defiance. "You'd like to see our showroom, sir, " hesaid, with an innocent suavity. Gip tugged my finger forward. I glanced atthe counter and met the shopman's eye again. I was beginning to think themagic just a little too genuine. "We haven't _very_ much time, " Isaid. But somehow we were inside the showroom before I could finish that. 

"All goods of the same quality, " said the shopman, rubbing his flexiblehands together, "and that is the Best. Nothing in the place that isn'tgenuine Magic, and warranted thoroughly rum. Excuse me, sir!"

I felt him pull at something that clung to my coat-sleeve, and then I sawhe held a little, wriggling red demon by the tail--the little creature bitand fought and tried to get at his hand--and in a moment he tossed itcarelessly behind a counter. No doubt the thing was only an image oftwisted indiarubber, but for the moment--! And his gesture was exactlythat of a man who handles some petty biting bit of vermin. I glanced atGip, but Gip was looking at a magic rocking-horse. I was glad he hadn'tseen the thing. "I say, " I said, in an undertone, and indicating Gip andthe red demon with my eyes, "you haven't many things like _that_about, have you?"

"None of ours! Probably brought it with you, " said the shopman--also in anundertone, and with a more dazzling smile than ever. "Astonishing whatpeople _will_, carry about with them unawares!" And then to Gip, "Doyou see anything you fancy here?"

There were many things that Gip fancied there. 

He turned to this astonishing tradesman with mingled confidence andrespect. "Is that a Magic Sword?" he said. 

"A Magic Toy Sword. It neither bends, breaks, nor cuts the fingers. Itrenders the bearer invincible in battle against any one under eighteen. Half a crown to seven and sixpence, according to size. These panoplies oncards are for juvenile knights-errant and very useful--shield of safety, sandals of swiftness, helmet of invisibility. "

"Oh, dadda!" gasped Gip. 

I tried to find out what they cost, but the shopman did not heed me. He had got Gip now; he had got him away from my finger; he had embarkedupon the exposition of all his confounded stock, and nothing was going tostop him. Presently I saw with a qualm of distrust and something very likejealousy that Gip had hold of this person's finger as usually he has holdof mine. No doubt the fellow was interesting, I thought, and had aninterestingly faked lot of stuff, really _good_ faked stuff, still----

I wandered after them, saying very little, but keeping an eye on thisprestidigital fellow. After all, Gip was enjoying it. And no doubt whenthe time came to go we should be able to go quite easily. 

It was a long, rambling place, that showroom, a gallery broken up bystands and stalls and pillars, with archways leading off to otherdepartments, in which the queerest-looking assistants loafed and stared atone, and with perplexing mirrors and curtains. So perplexing, indeed, werethese that I was presently unable to make out the door by which we hadcome. 

The shopman showed Gip magic trains that ran without steam or clockwork, just as you set the signals, and then some very, very valuable boxes ofsoldiers that all came alive directly you took off the lid and said----Imyself haven't a very quick ear, and it was a tongue-twisting sound, butGip--he has his mother's ear--got it in no time. "Bravo!" said theshopman, putting the men back into the box unceremoniously and handing itto Gip. "Now, " said the shopman, and in a moment Gip had made them allalive again. 

"You'll take that box?" asked the shopman. 

"We'll take that box, " said I, "unless you charge its full value. In whichcase it would need a Trust Magnate----"

"Dear heart! _No!_" and the shopman swept the little men back again, shut the lid, waved the box in the air, and there it was, in brown paper, tied up and--_with Gip's full name and address on the paper!_

The shopman laughed at my amazement. 

"This is the genuine magic, " he said. "The real thing. "

"It's a little too genuine for my taste, " I said again. 

After that he fell to showing Gip tricks, odd tricks, and still odder theway they were done. He explained them, he turned them inside out, andthere was the dear little chap nodding his busy bit of a head in thesagest manner. 

I did not attend as well as I might. "Hey, presto!" said the MagicShopman, and then would come the clear, small "Hey, presto!" of the boy. But I was distracted by other things. It was being borne in upon me justhow tremendously rum this place was; it was, so to speak, inundated by asense of rumness. There was something a little rum about the fixtureseven, about the ceiling, about the floor, about the casually distributedchairs. I had a queer feeling that whenever I wasn't looking at themstraight they went askew, and moved about, and played a noiselesspuss-in-the-corner behind my back. And the cornice had a serpentine designwith masks--masks altogether too expressive for proper plaster. 

Then abruptly my attention was caught by one of the odd-lookingassistants. He was some way off and evidently unaware of my presence--Isaw a sort of three-quarter length of him over a pile of toys and throughan arch--and, you know, he was leaning against a pillar in an idle sort ofway doing the most horrid things with his features! The particular horridthing he did was with his nose. He did it just as though he was idle andwanted to amuse himself. First of all it was a short, blobby nose, andthen suddenly he shot it out like a telescope, and then out it flew andbecame thinner and thinner until it was like a long, red flexible whip. Like a thing in a nightmare it was! He flourished it about and flung itforth as a fly-fisher flings his line. 

My instant thought was that Gip mustn't see him. I turned about, and therewas Gip quite preoccupied with the shopman, and thinking no evil. Theywere whispering together and looking at me. Gip was standing on a littlestool, and the shopman was holding a sort of big drum in his hand. 

"Hide and seek, dadda!" cried Gip. "You're He!"

And before I could do anything to prevent it, the shopman had clapped thebig drum over him. 

I saw what was up directly. "Take that off, " I cried, "this instant!You'll frighten the boy. Take it off!"

The shopman with the unequal ears did so without a word, and held the bigcylinder towards me to show its emptiness. And the little stool wasvacant! In that instant my boy had utterly disappeared!... 

You know, perhaps, that sinister something that conies like a hand out ofthe unseen and grips your heart about. You know it takes your common selfaway and leaves you tense and deliberate, neither slow nor hasty, neitherangry nor afraid. So it was with me. 

I came up to this grinning shopman and kicked his stool aside. 

"Stop this folly!" I said. "Where is my boy?"

"You see, " he said, still displaying the drum's interior, "there is nodeception----"

I put out my hand to grip him, and he eluded me by a dexterous movement. Isnatched again, and he turned from me and pushed open a door to escape. "Stop!" I said, and he laughed, receding. I leapt after him--into utterdarkness. 

_Thud!_

"Lor' bless my 'eart! I didn't see you coming, sir!"

I was in Regent Street, and I had collided with a decent-looking workingman; and a yard away, perhaps, and looking a little perplexed withhimself, was Gip. There was some sort of apology, and then Gip had turnedand come to me with a bright little smile, as though for a moment he hadmissed me. 

And he was carrying four parcels in his arm!

He secured immediate possession of my finger. 

For the second I was rather at a loss. I stared round to see the door ofthe Magic Shop, and, behold, it was not there! There was no door, no shop, nothing, only the common pilaster between the shop where they sellpictures and the window with the chicks! ... 

I did the only thing possible in that mental tumult; I walked straight tothe kerbstone and held up my umbrella for a cab. 

"'Ansoms, " said Gip, in a note of culminating exultation. 

I helped him in, recalled my address with an effort, and got in also. Something unusual proclaimed itself in my tail-coat pocket, and I felt anddiscovered a glass ball. With a petulant expression I flung it into thestreet. 

Gip said nothing. 

For a space neither of us spoke. 

"Dadda!" said Gip, at last, "that _was_ a proper shop!"

I came round with that to the problem of just how the whole thing hadseemed to him. He looked completely undamaged--so far, good; he wasneither scared nor unhinged, he was simply tremendously satisfied with theafternoon's entertainment, and there in his arms were the four parcels. 

Confound it! what could be in them?

"Um!" I said. "Little boys can't go to shops like that every day. "

He received this with his usual stoicism, and for a moment I was sorry Iwas his father and not his mother, and so couldn't suddenly there, _coram publico, _ in our hansom, kiss him. After all, I thought, thething wasn't so very bad. 

But it was only when we opened the parcels that I really began to bereassured. Three of them contained boxes of soldiers, quite ordinary leadsoldiers, but of so good a quality as to make Gip altogether forget thatoriginally these parcels had been Magic Tricks of the only genuine sort, and the fourth contained a kitten, a little living white kitten, inexcellent health and appetite and temper. 

I saw this unpacking with a sort of provisional relief. I hung about inthe nursery for quite an unconscionable time... 

That happened six months ago. And now I am beginning to believe it isall right. The kitten had only the magic natural to all kittens, andthe soldiers seemed as steady a company as any colonel could desire. AndGip----?

The intelligent parent will understand that I have to go cautiously withGip. 

But I went so far as this one day. I said, "How would you like yoursoldiers to come alive, Gip, and march about by themselves?"

"Mine do, " said Gip. "I just have to say a word I know before I open thelid. "

"Then they march about alone?"

"Oh, _quite_, dadda. I shouldn't like them if they didn't do that. "

I displayed no unbecoming surprise, and since then I have taken occasionto drop in upon him once or twice, unannounced, when the soldiers wereabout, but so far I have never discovered them performing in anything likea magical manner... 

It's so difficult to tell. 

There's also a question of finance. I have an incurable habit of payingbills. I have been up and down Regent Street several times looking forthat shop. I am inclined to think, indeed, that in that matter honour issatisfied, and that, since Gip's name and address are known to them, I mayvery well leave it to these people, whoever they may be, to send in theirbill in their own time. 

 XXX. 

 THE EMPIRE OF THE ANTS. 

When Captain Gerilleau received instructions to take his new gunboat, the_Benjamin Constant, _ to Badama on the Batemo arm of the Guaramademaand there assist the inhabitants against a plague of ants, he suspectedthe authorities of mockery. His promotion had been romantic and irregular, the affections of a prominent Brazilian lady and the captain's liquid eyeshad played a part in the process, and the _Diario_ and _OFuturo_ had been lamentably disrespectful in their comments. He felt hewas to give further occasion for disrespect. 

He was a Creole, his conceptions of etiquette and discipline werepure-blooded Portuguese, and it was only to Holroyd, the Lancashireengineer who had come over with the boat, and as an exercise in the use ofEnglish--his "th" sounds were very uncertain--that he opened his heart. 

"It is in effect, " he said, "to make me absurd! What can a man do againstants? Dey come, dey go. "

"They say, " said Holroyd, "that these don't go. That chap you said was aSambo----"

"Zambo;--it is a sort of mixture of blood. "

"Sambo. He said the people are going!"

The captain smoked fretfully for a time. "Dese tings 'ave to happen, " hesaid at last. "What is it? Plagues of ants and suchlike as God wills. Derewas a plague in Trinidad--the little ants that carry leaves. Orl derorange-trees, all der mangoes! What does it matter? Sometimes ant armiescome into your houses--fighting ants; a different sort. You go and theyclean the house. Then you come back again;--the house is clean, like new!No cockroaches, no fleas, no jiggers in the floor. "

"That Sambo chap, " said Holroyd, "says these are a different sort of ant. "

The captain shrugged his shoulders, fumed, and gave his attention to acigarette. 

Afterwards he reopened the subject. "My dear 'Olroyd, what am I to doabout dese infernal ants?"

The captain reflected. "It is ridiculous, " he said. But in the afternoonhe put on his full uniform and went ashore, and jars and boxes came backto the ship and subsequently he did. And Holroyd sat on deck in theevening coolness and smoked profoundly and marvelled at Brazil. They weresix days up the Amazon, some hundreds of miles from the ocean, and eastand west of him there was a horizon like the sea, and to the south nothingbut a sand-bank island with some tufts of scrub. The water was alwaysrunning like a sluice, thick with dirt, animated with crocodiles andhovering birds, and fed by some inexhaustible source of tree trunks; andthe waste of it, the headlong waste of it, filled his soul. The town ofAlemquer, with its meagre church, its thatched sheds for houses, itsdiscoloured ruins of ampler days, seemed a little thing lost in thiswilderness of Nature, a sixpence dropped on Sahara. He was a young man, this was his first sight of the tropics, he came straight from England, where Nature is hedged, ditched, and drained, into the perfection ofsubmission, and he had suddenly discovered the insignificance of man. Forsix days they had been steaming up from the sea by unfrequented channels;and man had been as rare as a rare butterfly. One saw one day a canoe, another day a distant station, the next no men at all. He began toperceive that man is indeed a rare animal, having but a precarious holdupon this land. 

He perceived it more clearly as the days passed, and he made his deviousway to the Batemo, in the company of this remarkable commander, who ruledover one big gun, and was forbidden to waste his ammunition. Holroyd waslearning Spanish industriously, but he was still in the present tense andsubstantive stage of speech, and the only other person who had any wordsof English was a negro stoker, who had them all wrong. The second incommand was a Portuguese, da Cunha, who spoke French, but it was adifferent sort of French from the French Holroyd had learnt in Southport, and their intercourse was confined to politenesses and simple propositionsabout the weather. And the weather, like everything else in this amazingnew world, the weather had no human aspect, and was hot by night and hotby day, and the air steam, even the wind was hot steam, smelling ofvegetation in decay: and the alligators and the strange birds, the fliesof many sorts and sizes, the beetles, the ants, the snakes and monkeysseemed to wonder what man was doing in an atmosphere that had no gladnessin its sunshine and no coolness in its night. To wear clothing wasintolerable, but to cast it aside was to scorch by day, and expose anampler area to the mosquitoes by night; to go on deck by day was to beblinded by glare and to stay below was to suffocate. And in the daytimecame certain flies, extremely clever and noxious about one's wrist andankle. Captain Gerilleau, who was Holroyd's sole distraction from thesephysical distresses, developed into a formidable bore, telling the simplestory of his heart's affections day by day, a string of anonymous women, as if he was telling beads. Sometimes he suggested sport, and they shot atalligators, and at rare intervals they came to human aggregations in thewaste of trees, and stayed for a day or so, and drank and sat about, and, one night, danced with Creole girls, who found Holroyd's poor elements ofSpanish, without either past tense or future, amply sufficient for theirpurposes. But these were mere luminous chinks in the long grey passage ofthe streaming river, up which the throbbing engines beat. A certainliberal heathen deity, in the shape of a demi-john, held seductive courtaft, and, it is probable, forward. 

But Gerilleau learnt things about the ants, more things and more, at thisstopping-place and that, and became interested in his mission. 

"Dey are a new sort of ant, " he said. "We have got to be--what do you callit?--entomologie? Big. Five centimetres! Some bigger! It is ridiculous. Weare like the monkeys---sent to pick insects... But dey are eating up thecountry. "

He burst out indignantly. "Suppose--suddenly, there are complications withEurope. Here am I--soon we shall be above the Rio Negro--and my gun, useless!"

He nursed his knee and mused. 

"Dose people who were dere at de dancing place, dey 'ave come down. Dey'ave lost all they got. De ants come to deir house one afternoon. Everyonerun out. You know when de ants come one must--everyone runs out and theygo over the house. If you stayed they'd eat you. See? Well, presently deygo back; dey say, 'The ants 'ave gone. ' ... De ants _'aven't_ gone. Dey try to go in--de son, 'e goes in. De ants fight. "

"Swarm over him?"

"Bite 'im. Presently he comes out again--screaming and running. He runspast them to the river. See? He gets into de water and drowns de ants--yes. " Gerilleau paused, brought his liquid eyes close to Holroyd's face, tapped Holroyd's knee with his knuckle. "That night he dies, just as if hewas stung by a snake. "

"Poisoned--by the ants?"

"Who knows?" Gerilleau shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps they bit himbadly... When I joined dis service I joined to fight men. Dese things, dese ants, dey come and go. It is no business for men. "

After that he talked frequently of the ants to Holroyd, and whenever theychanced to drift against any speck of humanity in that waste of water andsunshine and distant trees, Holroyd's improving knowledge of the languageenabled him to recognise the ascendant word _Saüba_, more and morecompletely dominating the whole. 

He perceived the ants were becoming interesting, and the nearer he drew tothem the more interesting they became. Gerilleau abandoned his old themesalmost suddenly, and the Portuguese lieutenant became a conversationalfigure; he knew something about the leaf-cutting ant, and expanded hisknowledge. Gerilleau sometimes rendered what he had to tell to Holroyd. Hetold of the little workers that swarm and fight, and the big workers thatcommand and rule, and how these latter always crawled to the neck and howtheir bites drew blood. He told how they cut leaves and made fungus beds, and how their nests in Caracas are sometimes a hundred yards across. Twodays the three men spent disputing whether ants have eyes. The discussiongrew dangerously heated on the second afternoon, and Holroyd saved thesituation by going ashore in a boat to catch ants and see. He capturedvarious specimens and returned, and some had eyes and some hadn't. Also, they argued, do ants bite or sting?

"Dese ants, " said Gerilleau, after collecting information at a rancho, "have big eyes. They don't run about blind--not as most ants do. No! Deyget in corners and watch what you do. "

"And they sting?" asked Holroyd. 

"Yes. Dey sting. Dere is poison in the sting. " He meditated. "I do not seewhat men can do against ants. Dey come and go. "

"But these don't go. "

"They will, " said Gerilleau. 

Past Tamandu there is a long low coast of eighty miles without anypopulation, and then one comes to the confluence of the main river and theBatemo arm like a great lake, and then the forest came nearer, came atlast intimately near. The character of the channel changes, snags abound, and the _Benjamin Constant_ moored by a cable that night, under thevery shadow of dark trees. For the first time for many days came a spellof coolness, and Holroyd and Gerilleau sat late, smoking cigars andenjoying this delicious sensation. Gerilleau's mind was full of ants andwhat they could do. He decided to sleep at last, and lay down on amattress on deck, a man hopelessly perplexed, his last words, when healready seemed asleep, were to ask, with a flourish of despair, "What canone do with ants?... De whole thing is absurd. "

Holroyd was left to scratch his bitten wrists, and meditate alone. 

He sat on the bulwark and listened to the little changes in Gerilleau'sbreathing until he was fast asleep, and then the ripple and lap of thestream took his mind, and brought back that sense of immensity that hadbeen growing upon him since first he had left Para and come up the river. The monitor showed but one small light, and there was first a littletalking forward and then stillness. His eyes went from the dim blackoutlines of the middle works of the gunboat towards the bank, to the blackoverwhelming mysteries of forest, lit now and then by a fire-fly, andnever still from the murmur of alien and mysterious activities... 

It was the inhuman immensity of this land that astonished and oppressedhim. He knew the skies were empty of men, the stars were specks in anincredible vastness of space; he knew the ocean was enormous anduntamable, but in England he had come to think of the land as man's. InEngland it is indeed man's, the wild things live by sufferance, grow onlease, everywhere the roads, the fences, and absolute security runs. In anatlas, too, the land is man's, and all coloured to show his claim to it--in vivid contrast to the universal independent blueness of the sea. He hadtaken it for granted that a day would come when everywhere about theearth, plough and culture, light tramways and good roads, an orderedsecurity, would prevail. But now, he doubted. 

This forest was interminable, it had an air of being invincible, and Manseemed at best an infrequent precarious intruder. One travelled for miles, amidst the still, silent struggle of giant trees, of strangulatingcreepers, of assertive flowers, everywhere the alligator, the turtle, andendless varieties of birds and insects seemed at home, dweltirreplaceably--but man, man at most held a footing upon resentfulclearings, fought weeds, fought beasts and insects for the barestfoothold, fell a prey to snake and beast, insect and fever, and waspresently carried away. In many places down the river he had beenmanifestly driven back, this deserted creek or that preserved the name ofa _casa_, and here and there ruinous white walls and a shatteredtower enforced the lesson. The puma, the jaguar, were more the mastershere... 

Who were the real masters?

In a few miles of this forest there must be more ants than there are menin the whole world! This seemed to Holroyd a perfectly new idea. In a fewthousand years men had emerged from barbarism to a stage of civilisationthat made them feel lords of the future and masters of the earth! But whatwas to prevent the ants evolving also? Such ants as one knew lived inlittle communities of a few thousand individuals, made no concertedefforts against the greater world. But they had a language, they had anintelligence! Why should things stop at that any more than men had stoppedat the barbaric stage? Suppose presently the ants began to storeknowledge, just as men had done by means of books and records, useweapons, form great empires, sustain a planned and organised war?

Things came back to him that Gerilleau had gathered about these ants theywere approaching. They used a poison like the poison of snakes. Theyobeyed greater leaders even as the leaf-cutting ants do. They werecarnivorous, and where they came they stayed... 

The forest was very still. The water lapped incessantly against the side. About the lantern overhead there eddied a noiseless whirl of phantommoths. 

Gerilleau stirred in the darkness and sighed. "What can one _do?_" hemurmured, and turned over and was still again. 

Holroyd was roused from meditations that were becoming sinister by the humof a mosquito. 

II. 

The next morning Holroyd learnt they were within forty kilometres ofBadama, and his interest in the banks intensified. He came up whenever anopportunity offered to examine his surroundings. He could see no signs ofhuman occupation whatever, save for a weedy ruin of a house and thegreen-stained facade of the long-deserted monastery at Mojû, with a foresttree growing out of a vacant window space, and great creepers netted acrossits vacant portals. Several flights of strange yellow butterflies withsemi-transparent wings crossed the river that morning, and many alighted onthe monitor and were killed by the men. It was towards afternoon that theycame upon the derelict _cuberta_. 

She did not at first appear to be derelict; both her sails were set andhanging slack in the afternoon calm, and there was the figure of a mansitting on the fore planking beside the shipped sweeps. Another manappeared to be sleeping face downwards on the sort of longitudinal bridgethese big canoes have in the waist. But it was presently apparent, fromthe sway of her rudder and the way she drifted into the course of thegunboat, that something was out of order with her. Gerilleau surveyed herthrough a field-glass, and became interested in the queer darkness of theface of the sitting man, a red-faced man he seemed, without a nose--crouching he was rather than sitting, and the longer the captain lookedthe less he liked to look at him, and the less able he was to take hisglasses away. 

But he did so at last, and went a little way to call up Holroyd. Then hewent back to hail the cuberta. He ailed her again, and so she drove pasthim. _Santa Rosa_ stood out clearly as her name. 

As she came by and into the wake of the monitor, she pitched a little, andsuddenly the figure of the crouching an collapsed as though all its jointshad given way. His hat fell off, his head was not nice to look at, and hisbody flopped lax and rolled out of sight behind the bulwarks. 

"Caramba!" cried Gerilleau, and resorted to Holroyd forthwith. 

Holroyd was half-way up the companion. "Did you see dat?" said thecaptain. 

"Dead!" said Holroyd. "Yes. You'd better send a boat aboard. There'ssomething wrong. "

"Did you--by any chance--see his face?"

"What was it like?"

"It was--ugh!--I have no words. " And the captain suddenly turned his backon Holroyd and became an active and strident commander. 

The gunboat came about, steamed parallel to the erratic course of thecanoe, and dropped the boat with Lieutenant da Cunha and three sailors toboard her. Then the curiosity of the captain made him draw up almostalongside as the lieutenant got aboard, so that the whole of the _SantaRosa_, deck and hold, was visible to Holroyd. 

He saw now clearly that the sole crew of the vessel was these two deadmen, and though he could not see their faces, he saw by their outstretchedhands, which were all of ragged flesh, that they had been subjected tosome strange exceptional process of decay. For a moment his attentionconcentrated on those two enigmatical bundles of dirty clothes and laxlyflung limbs, and then his eyes went forward to discover the open holdpiled high with trunks and cases, and aft, to where the little cabin gapedinexplicably empty. Then he became aware that the planks of the middledecking were dotted with moving black specks. 

His attention was riveted by these specks. They were all walking indirections radiating from the fallen man in a manner--the image cameunsought to his mind--like the crowd dispersing from a bull-fight. 

He became aware of Gerilleau beside him. "Capo, " he said, "have you yourglasses? Can you focus as closely as those planks there?"

Gerilleau made an effort, grunted, and handed him the glasses. 

There followed a moment of scrutiny. "It's ants, " said the Englishman, andhanded the focused field-glass back to Gerilleau. 

His impression of them was of a crowd of large black ants, very likeordinary ants except for their size, and for the fact that some of thelarger of them bore a sort of clothing of grey. But at the time hisinspection was too brief for particulars. The head of Lieutenant da Cunhaappeared over the side of the cuberta, and a brief colloquy ensued. 

"You must go aboard, " said Gerilleau. 

The lieutenant objected that the boat was full of ants. 

"You have your boots, " said Gerilleau. 

The lieutenant changed the subject. "How did these en die?" he asked. 

Captain Gerilleau embarked upon speculations that Holroyd could notfollow, and the two men disputed with a certain increasing vehemence. Holroyd took up the field-glass and resumed his scrutiny, first of theants and then of the dead man amidships. 

He has described these ants to me very particularly. 

He says they were as large as any ants he has ever seen, black and movingwith a steady deliberation very different from the mechanical fussiness ofthe common ant. About one in twenty was much larger than its fellows, andwith an exceptionally large head. These reminded him at once of the masterworkers who are said to rule over the leaf-cutter ants; like them theyseemed to be directing and co-ordinating the general movements. Theytilted their bodies back in a manner altogether singular as if they madesome use of the fore feet. And he had a curious fancy that he was too faroff to verify, that most of these ants of both kinds were wearingaccoutrements, had things strapped about their bodies by bright whitebands like white metal threads... 

He put down the glasses abruptly, realising that the question ofdiscipline between the captain and his subordinate had become acute. 

"It is your duty, " said the captain, "to go aboard. It is myinstructions. "

The lieutenant seemed on the verge of refusing. The head of one of themulatto sailors appeared beside him. 

"I believe these men were killed by the ants, " said Holroyd abruptly inEnglish. 

The captain burst into a rage. He made no answer to Holroyd. "I havecommanded you to go aboard, " he screamed to his subordinate in Portuguese. "If you do not go aboard forthwith it is mutiny--rank mutiny. Mutiny andcowardice! Where is the courage that should animate us? I will have you inirons, I will have you shot like a dog. " He began a torrent of abuse andcurses, he danced to and fro. He shook his fists, he behaved as if besidehimself with rage, and the lieutenant, white and still, stood looking athim. The crew appeared forward, with amazed faces. 

Suddenly, in a pause of this outbreak, the lieutenant came to some heroicdecision, saluted, drew himself together and clambered upon the deck ofthe cuberta. 

"Ah!" said Gerilleau, and his mouth shut like a trap. Holroyd saw the antsretreating before da Cunha's boots. The Portuguese walked slowly to thefallen man, stooped down, hesitated, clutched his coat and turned himover. A black swarm of ants rushed out of the clothes, and da Cunhastepped back very quickly and trod two or three times on the deck. 

Holroyd put up the glasses. He saw the scattered ants about the invader'sfeet, and doing what he had never seen ants doing before. They had nothingof the blind movements of the common ant; they were looking at him--as arallying crowd of men might look at some gigantic monster that haddispersed it. 

"How did he die?" the captain shouted. 

Holroyd understood the Portuguese to say the body was too much eaten totell. 

"What is there forward?" asked Gerilleau. 

The lieutenant walked a few paces, and began his answer in Portuguese. Hestopped abruptly and beat off something from his leg. He made somepeculiar steps as if he was trying to stamp on something invisible, andwent quickly towards the side. Then he controlled himself, turned about, walked deliberately forward to the hold, clambered up to the fore decking, from which the sweeps are worked, stooped for a time over the second man, groaned audibly, and made his way back and aft to the cabin, moving veryrigidly. He turned and began a conversation with his captain, cold andrespectful in tone on either side, contrasting vividly with the wrath andinsult of a few moments before. Holroyd gathered only fragments of itspurport. 

He reverted to the field-glass, and was surprised to find the ants hadvanished from all the exposed surfaces of the deck. He turned towards theshadows beneath the decking, and it seemed to him they were full ofwatching eyes. 

The cuberta, it was agreed; was derelict, but too full of ants to put menaboard to sit and sleep: it must be towed. The lieutenant went forward totake in and adjust the cable, and the men in the boat stood up to be readyto help him. Holroyd's glasses searched the canoe. 

He became more and more impressed by the fact that a great if minute andfurtive activity was going on. He perceived that a number of giganticants--they seemed nearly a couple of inches in length--carryingoddly-shaped burthens for which he could imagine no use--were moving inrushes from one point of obscurity to another. They did not move in columnsacross the exposed places, but in open, spaced-out lines, oddly suggestiveof the rushes of modern infantry advancing under fire. A number weretaking cover under the dead man's clothes, and a perfect swarm wasgathering along the side over which da Cunha must presently go. 

He did not see them actually rush for the lieutenant as he returned, buthe has no doubt they did make a concerted rush. Suddenly the lieutenantwas shouting and cursing and beating at his legs. "I'm stung!" he shouted, with a face of hate and accusation towards Gerilleau. 

Then he vanished over the side, dropped into his boat, and plunged at onceinto the water. Holroyd heard the splash. 

The three men in the boat pulled him out and brought him aboard, and thatnight he died. 

III. 

Holroyd and the captain came out of the cabin in which the swollen andcontorted body of the lieutenant lay and stood together at the stern ofthe monitor, staring at the sinister vessel they trailed behind them. Itwas a close, dark night that had only phantom flickerings of sheetlightning to illuminate it. The cuberta, a vague black triangle, rockedabout in the steamer's wake, her sails bobbing and flapping, and the blacksmoke from the funnels, spark-lit ever and again, streamed over herswaying masts. 

Gerilleau's mind was inclined to run on the unkind things the lieutenanthad said in the heat of his last fever. 

"He says I murdered 'im, " he protested. "It is simply absurd. Someone_'ad_ to go aboard. Are we to run away from these confounded antswhenever they show up?"

Holroyd said nothing. He was thinking of a disciplined rush of littleblack shapes across bare sunlit planking. 

"It was his place to go, " harped Gerilleau. "He died in the execution ofhis duty. What has he to complain of? Murdered!... But the poor fellowwas--what is it?--demented. He was not in his right mind. The poisonswelled him... U'm. "

They came to a long silence. 

"We will sink that canoe--burn it. "

"And then?"

The inquiry irritated Gerilleau. His shoulders went up, his hands flew outat right angles from his body. "What is one to _do?_" he said, hisvoice going up to an angry squeak. 

"Anyhow, " he broke out vindictively, "every ant in dat cuberta!--I willburn dem alive!"

Holroyd was not moved to conversation. A distant ululation of howlingmonkeys filled the sultry night with foreboding sounds, and as the gunboatdrew near the black mysterious banks this was reinforced by a depressingclamour of frogs. 

"What is one to _do?_" the captain repeated after a vast interval, and suddenly becoming active and savage and blasphemous, decided to burnthe _Santa Rosa_ without further delay. Everyone aboard was pleasedby that idea, everyone helped with zest; they pulled in the cable, cut it, and dropped the boat and fired her with tow and kerosene, and soon thecuberta was crackling and flaring merrily amidst the immensities of thetropical night. Holroyd watched the mounting yellow flare against theblackness, and the livid flashes of sheet lightning that came and wentabove the forest summits, throwing them into momentary silhouette, and hisstoker stood behind him watching also. 

The stoker was stirred to the depths of his linguistics. "_Saüba_ gopop, pop, " he said, "Wahaw" and laughed richly. 

But Holroyd was thinking that these little creatures on the decked canoehad also eyes and brains. 

The whole thing impressed him as incredibly foolish and wrong, but--whatwas one to _do_? This question came back enormously reinforced on themorrow, when at last the gunboat reached Badama. 

This place, with its leaf-thatch-covered houses and sheds, itscreeper-invaded sugar-mill, its little jetty of timber and canes, was verystill in the morning heat, and showed never a sign of living men. Whateverants there were at that distance were too small to see. 

"All the people have gone, " said Gerilleau, "but we will do one thinganyhow. We will 'oot and vissel. "

So Holroyd hooted and whistled. 

Then the captain fell into a doubting fit of the worst kind. "Dere is onething we can do, " he said presently, "What's that?" said Holroyd. 

"'Oot and vissel again. "

So they did. 

The captain walked his deck and gesticulated to himself. He seemed to havemany things on his mind. Fragments of speeches came from his lips. Heappeared to be addressing some imaginary public tribunal either in Spanishor Portuguese. Holroyd's improving ear detected something aboutammunition. He came out of these preoccupations suddenly into English. "Mydear 'Olroyd!" he cried, and broke off with "But what _can_ one do?"

They took the boat and the field-glasses, and went close in to examine theplace. They made out a number of big ants, whose still postures had acertain effect of watching them, dotted about the edge of the rudeembarkation jetty. Gerilleau tried ineffectual pistol shots at these. Holroyd thinks he distinguished curious earthworks running between thenearer houses, that may have been the work of the insect conquerors ofthose human habitations. The explorers pulled past the jetty, and becameaware of a human skeleton wearing a loin cloth, and very bright and cleanand shining, lying beyond. They came to a pause regarding this... 

"I 'ave all dose lives to consider, " said Gerilleau suddenly. 

Holroyd turned and stared at the captain, realising slowly that hereferred to the unappetising mixture of races that constituted his crew. 

"To send a landing party--it is impossible--impossible. They will bepoisoned, they will swell, they will swell up and abuse me and die. It istotally impossible... If we land, I must land alone, alone, in thickboots and with my life in my hand. Perhaps I should live. Or again--Imight not land. I do not know. I do not know. "

Holroyd thought he did, but he said nothing. 

"De whole thing, " said Gerilleau suddenly, "'as been got up to make meridiculous. De whole thing!"

They paddled about and regarded the clean white skeleton from variouspoints of view, and then they returned to the gunboat. Then Gerilleau'sindecisions became terrible. Steam was got up, and in the afternoon themonitor went on up the river with an air of going to ask somebodysomething, and by sunset came back again and anchored. A thunderstormgathered and broke furiously, and then the night became beautifully cooland quiet and everyone slept on deck. Except Gerilleau, who tossed aboutand muttered. In the dawn he awakened Holroyd. 

"Lord!" said Holroyd, "what now?"

"I have decided, " said the captain. 

"What--to land?" said Holroyd, sitting up brightly. 

"No!" said the captain, and was for a time very reserved. "I havedecided, " he repeated, and Holroyd manifested symptoms of impatience. 

"Well, --yes, " said the captain, "_I shall fire de big gun!_"

And he did! Heaven knows what the ants thought of it, but he did. He firedit twice with great sternness and ceremony. All the crew had wadding intheir ears, and there was an effect of going into action about the wholeaffair, and first they hit and wrecked the old sugar-mill, and then theysmashed the abandoned store behind the jetty. And then Gerilleauexperienced the inevitable reaction. 

"It is no good, " he said to Holroyd; "no good at all. No sort of ballygood. We must go back--for instructions. Dere will be de devil of a rowabout dis ammunition--oh! de _devil_ of a row! You don't know, 'Olroyd... "

He stood regarding the world in infinite perplexity for a space. 

"But what else was there to _do?_" he cried. 

In the afternoon the monitor started down stream again, and in the eveninga landing party took the body of the lieutenant and buried it on the bankupon which the new ants have so far not appeared... 

IV. 

I heard this story in a fragmentary state from Holroyd not three weeksago. 

These new ants have got into his brain, and he has come back to Englandwith the idea, as he says, of "exciting people" about them "before it istoo late. " He says they threaten British Guiana, which cannot be much overa trifle of a thousand miles from their present sphere of activity, andthat the Colonial Office ought to get to work upon them at once. Hedeclaims with great passion: "These are intelligent ants. Just think whatthat means!"

There can be no doubt they are a serious pest, and that the BrazilianGovernment is well advised in offering a prize of five hundred pounds forsome effectual method of extirpation. It is certain too that since theyfirst appeared in the hills beyond Badama, about three years ago, theyhave achieved extraordinary conquests. The whole of the south bank of theBatemo River, for nearly sixty miles, they have in their effectualoccupation; they have driven men out completely, occupied plantations andsettlements, and boarded and captured at least one ship. It is even saidthey have in some inexplicable way bridged the very considerable Capuaranaarm and pushed many miles towards the Amazon itself. There can be littledoubt that they are far more reasonable and with a far better socialorganisation than any previously known ant species; instead of being indispersed societies they are organised into what is in effect a singlenation; but their peculiar and immediate formidableness lies not so muchin this as in the intelligent use they make of poison against their largerenemies. It would seem this poison of theirs is closely akin to snakepoison, and it is highly probable they actually manufacture it, and thatthe larger individuals among them carry the needle-like crystals of it intheir attacks upon men. 

Of course it is extremely difficult to get any detailed information aboutthese new competitors for the sovereignty of the globe. No eye-witnessesof their activity, except for such glimpses as Holroyd's, have survivedthe encounter. The most extraordinary legends of their prowess andcapacity are in circulation in the region of the Upper Amazon, and growdaily as the steady advance of the invader stimulates men's imaginationsthrough their fears. These strange little creatures are credited not onlywith the use of implements and a knowledge of fire and metals and withorganised feats of engineering that stagger our northern minds--unused aswe are to such feats as that of the Saübas of Rio de Janeiro, who in 1841drove a tunnel under the Parahyba where it is as wide as the Thames atLondon Bridge--but with an organised and detailed method of record andcommunication analogous to our books. So far their action has been asteady progressive settlement, involving the flight or slaughter of everyhuman being in the new areas they invade. They are increasing rapidly innumbers, and Holroyd at least is firmly convinced that they will finallydispossess man over the whole of tropical South America. 

And why should they stop at tropical South America?

Well, there they are, anyhow. By 1911 or thereabouts, if they go on asthey are going, they ought to strike the Capuarana Extension Railway, andforce themselves upon the attention of the European capitalist. 

By 1920 they will be half-way down the Amazon. I fix 1950 or '60 at thelatest for the discovery of Europe. 

 XXXI. 

 THE DOOR IN THE WALL. 

I. 

One confidential evening, not three months ago, Lionel Wallace told methis story of the Door in the Wall. And at the time I thought that so faras he was concerned it was a true story. 

He told it me with such a direct simplicity of conviction that I could notdo otherwise than believe in him. But in the morning, in my own flat, Iwoke to a different atmosphere, and as I lay in bed and recalled thethings he had told me, stripped of the glamour of his earnest slow voice, denuded of the focussed, shaded table light, the shadowy atmosphere thatwrapped about him and me, and the pleasant bright things, the dessert andglasses and napery of the dinner we had shared, making them for the time abright little world quite cut off from everyday realities, I saw it all asfrankly incredible. "He was mystifying!" I said, and then: "How well hedid it!... It isn't quite the thing I should have expected him, of allpeople, to do well. "

Afterwards as I sat up in bed and sipped my morning tea, I found myselftrying to account for the flavour of reality that perplexed me in hisimpossible reminiscences, by supposing they did in some way suggest, present, convey--I hardly know which word to use--experiences it wasotherwise impossible to tell. 

Well, I don't resort to that explanation now. I have got over myintervening doubts. I believe now, as I believed at the moment of telling, that Wallace did to the very best of his ability strip the truth of hissecret for me. But whether he himself saw, or only thought he saw, whetherhe himself was the possessor of an inestimable privilege or the victim ofa fantastic dream, I cannot pretend to guess. Even the facts of his death, which ended my doubts for ever, throw no light on that. 

That much the reader must judge for himself. 

I forget now what chance comment or criticism of mine moved so reticent aman to confide in me. He was, I think, defending himself against animputation of slackness and unreliability I had made in relation to agreat public movement, in which he had disappointed me. But he plungedsuddenly. "I have, " he said, "a preoccupation----

"I know, " he went on, after a pause, "I have been negligent. The fact is--it isn't a case of ghosts or apparitions--but--it's an odd thing to tellof, Redmond--I am haunted. I am haunted by something--that rather takesthe light out of things, that fills me with longings... "

He paused, checked by that English shyness that so often overcomes us whenwe would speak of moving or grave or beautiful things. "You were at SaintAethelstan's all through, " he said, and for a moment that seemed to mequite irrelevant. "Well"--and he paused. Then very haltingly at first, butafterwards more easily, he began to tell of the thing that was hidden inhis life, the haunting memory of a beauty and a happiness that filled hisheart with insatiable longings, that made all the interests and spectacleof worldly life seem dull and tedious and vain to him. 

Now that I have the clue to it, the thing seems written visibly in hisface. I have a photograph in which that look of detachment has been caughtand intensified. It reminds me of what a woman once said of him--a womanwho had loved him greatly. "Suddenly, " she said, "the interest goes out ofhim. He forgets you. He doesn't care a rap for you--under his verynose... "

Yet the interest was not always out of him, and when he was holding hisattention to a thing Wallace could contrive to be an extremely successfulman. His career, indeed, is set with successes. He left me behind him longago: he soared up over my head, and cut a figure in the world that Icouldn't cut--anyhow. He was still a year short of forty, and they say nowthat he would have been in office and very probably in the new Cabinet ifhe had lived. At school he always beat me without effort--as it were bynature. We were at school together at Saint Aethelstan's College in WestKensington for almost all our school-time. He came into the school as mycoequal, but he left far above me, in a blaze of scholarships andbrilliant performance. Yet I think I made a fair average running. And itwas at school I heard first of the "Door in the Wall"--that I was to hearof a second time only a month before his death. 

To him at least the Door in the Wall was a real door, leading through areal wall to immortal realities. Of that I am now quite assured. 

And it came into his life quite early, when he was a little fellow betweenfive and six. I remember how, as he sat making his confession to me with aslow gravity, he reasoned and reckoned the date of it. "There was, " hesaid, "a crimson Virginia creeper in it--all one bright uniform crimson, in a clear amber sunshine against a white wall. That came into theimpression somehow, though I don't clearly remember how, and there werehorse-chestnut leaves upon the clean pavement outside the green door. Theywere blotched yellow and green, you know, not brown nor dirty, so thatthey must have been new fallen. I take it that means October. I look outfor horse-chestnut leaves every year and I ought to know. 

"If I'm right in that, I was about five years and four months old. "

He was, he said, rather a precocious little boy--he learnt to talk at anabnormally early age, and he was so sane and "old-fashioned, " as peoplesay, that he was permitted an amount of initiative that most childrenscarcely attain by seven or eight. His mother died when he was two, and hewas under the less vigilant and authoritative care of a nursery governess. His father was a stern, preoccupied lawyer, who gave him little attention, and expected great things of him. For all his brightness he found life alittle grey and dull, I think. And one day he wandered. 

He could not recall the particular neglect that enabled him to get away, nor the course he took among the West Kensington roads. All that had fadedamong the incurable blurs of memory. But the white wall and the green doorstood out quite distinctly. 

As his memory of that childish experience ran, he did at the very firstsight of that door experience a peculiar emotion, an attraction, a desireto get to the door and open it and walk in. And at the same time he hadthe clearest conviction that either it was unwise or it was wrong of him--he could not tell which--to yield to this attraction. He insisted upon itas a curious thing that he knew from the very beginning--unless memory hasplayed him the queerest trick--that the door was unfastened, and that hecould go in as he chose. 

I seem to see the figure of that little boy, drawn and repelled. And itwas very clear in his mind, too, though why it should be so was neverexplained, that his father would be very angry if he went in through thatdoor. 

Wallace described all these moments of hesitation to me with the utmostparticularity. He went right past the door, and then, with his hands inhis pockets and making an infantile attempt to whistle, strolled rightalong beyond the end of the wall. There he recalls a number of mean dirtyshops, and particularly that of a plumber and decorator with a dustydisorder of earthenware pipes, sheet lead, ball taps, pattern books ofwall paper, and tins of enamel. He stood pretending to examine thesethings, and _coveting_, passionately desiring, the green door. 

Then, he said, he had a gust of emotion. He made a run for it, lesthesitation should grip him again; he went plump with outstretched handthrough the green door and let it slam behind him. And so, in a trice, hecame into the garden that has haunted all his life. 

It was very difficult for Wallace to give me his full sense of that gardeninto which he came. 

There was something in the very air of it that exhilarated, that gave onea sense of lightness and good happening and well-being; there wassomething in the sight of it that made all its colour clean and perfectand subtly luminous. In the instant of coming into it one was exquisitelyglad--as only in rare moments, and when one is young and joyful one can beglad in this world. And everything was beautiful there... 

Wallace mused before he went on telling me. "You see, " he said, with thedoubtful inflection of a man who pauses at incredible things, "there weretwo great panthers there... Yes, spotted panthers. And I was not afraid. There was a long wide path with marble-edged flower borders on eitherside, and these two huge velvety beasts were playing there with a ball. One looked up and came towards me, a little curious as it seemed. It cameright up to me, rubbed its soft round ear very gently against the smallhand I held out, and purred. It was, I tell you, an enchanted garden. Iknow. And the size? Oh! it stretched far and wide, this way and that. Ibelieve there were hills far away. Heaven knows where West Kensington hadsuddenly got to. And somehow it was just like coming home. 

"You know, in the very moment the door swung to behind me, I forgot theroad with its fallen chestnut leaves, its cabs and tradesmen's carts, Iforgot the sort of gravitational pull back to the discipline and obedienceof home, I forgot all hesitations and fear, forgot discretion, forgot allthe intimate realities of this life. I became in a moment a very glad andwonder-happy little boy--in another world. It was a world with a differentquality, a warmer, more penetrating and mellower light, with a faint cleargladness in its air, and wisps of sun-touched cloud in the blueness of itssky. And before me ran this long wide path, invitingly, with weedless bedson either side, rich with untended flowers, and these two great panthers. I put my little hands fearlessly on their soft fur, and caressed theirround ears and the sensitive corners under their ears, and played withthem, and it was as though they welcomed me home. There was a keen senseof home-coming in my mind, and when presently a tall, fair girl appearedin the pathway and came to meet me, smiling, and said 'Well?' to me, andlifted me, and kissed me, and put me down, and led me by the hand, therewas no amazement, but only an impression of delightful rightness, of beingreminded of happy things that had in some strange way been overlooked. There were broad red steps, I remember, that came into view between spikesof delphinium, and up these we went to a great avenue between very old andshady dark trees. All down this avenue, you know, between the red chappedstems, were marble seats of honour and statuary, and very tame andfriendly white doves... 

"Along this cool avenue my girl-friend led me, looking down--I recall thepleasant lines, the finely-modelled chin of her sweet kind face--asking mequestions in a soft, agreeable voice, and telling me things, pleasantthings I know, though what they were I was never able to recall... Presently a little Capuchin monkey, very clean, with a fur of ruddy brownand kindly hazel eyes, came down a tree to us and ran beside me, lookingup at me and grinning, and presently leapt to my shoulder. So we two wenton our way in great happiness. "

He paused. 

"Go on, " I said. 

"I remember little things. We passed an old man musing among laurels, Iremember, and a place gay with paroquets, and came through a broad shadedcolonnade to a spacious cool palace, full of pleasant fountains, full ofbeautiful things, full of the quality and promise of heart's desire. Andthere were many things and many people, some that still seem to stand outclearly and some that are a little vague; but all these people werebeautiful and kind. In some way--I don't know how--it was conveyed to methat they all were kind to me, glad to have me there, and filling me withgladness by their gestures, by the touch of their hands, by the welcomeand love in their eyes. Yes----"

He mused for a while. "Playmates I found there. That was very much to me, because I was a lonely little boy. They played delightful games in agrass-covered court where there was a sun-dial set about with flowers. Andas one played one loved... 

"But--it's odd--there's a gap in my memory. I don't remember the games weplayed. I never remembered. Afterwards, as a child, I spent long hourstrying, even with tears, to recall the form of that happiness. I wanted toplay it all over again--in my nursery--by myself. No! All I remember isthe happiness and two dear playfellows who were most with me... Thenpresently came a sombre dark woman, with a grave, pale face and dreamyeyes, a sombre woman, wearing a soft long robe of pale purple, who carrieda book, and beckoned and took me aside with her into a gallery above ahall--though my playmates were loth to have me go, and ceased their gameand stood watching as I was carried away. Come back to us!' they cried. 'Come back to us soon!' I looked up at her face, but she heeded them notat all. Her face was very gentle and grave. She took me to a seat in thegallery, and I stood beside her, ready to look at her book as she openedit upon her knee. The pages fell open. She pointed, and I looked, marvelling, for in the living pages of that book I saw myself; it was astory about myself, and in it were all the things that had happened to mesince ever I was born... 

"It was wonderful to me, because the pages of that book were not pictures, you understand, but realities. "

Wallace paused gravely--looked at me doubtfully. 

"Go on, " I said. "I understand. "

"They were realities---yes, they must have been; people moved and thingscame and went in them; my dear mother, whom I had near forgotten; then myfather, stern and upright, the servants, the nursery, all the familiarthings of home. Then the front door and the busy streets, with traffic toand fro. I looked and marvelled, and looked half doubtfully again into thewoman's face and turned the pages over, skipping this and that, to seemore of this book and more, and so at last I came to myself hovering andhesitating outside the green door in the long white wall, and felt againthe conflict and the fear. 

"'And next?' I cried, and would have turned on, but the cool hand of thegrave woman delayed me. 

"'Next?' I insisted, and struggled gently with her hand, pulling up herfingers with all my childish strength, and as she yielded and the pagecame over she bent down upon me like a shadow and kissed my brow. 

"But the page did not show the enchanted garden, nor the panthers, nor thegirl who had led me by the hand, nor the playfellows who had been so lothto let me go. It showed a long grey street in West Kensington, in thatchill hour of afternoon before the lamps are lit, and I was there, awretched little figure, weeping aloud, for all that I could do to restrainmyself, and I was weeping because I could not return to my dearplayfellows who had called after me, 'Come back to us! Come back to ussoon!' I was there. This was no page in a book, but harsh reality; thatenchanted place and the restraining hand of the grave mother at whose kneeI stood had gone--whither had they gone?"

He halted again, and remained for a time staring into the fire. 

"Oh! the woefulness of that return!" he murmured. 

"Well?" I said, after a minute or so. 

"Poor little wretch I was!--brought back to this grey world again! As Irealised the fulness of what had happened to me, I gave way to quiteungovernable grief. And the shame and humiliation of that public weepingand my disgraceful home-coming remain with me still. I see again thebenevolent-looking old gentleman in gold spectacles who stopped and spoketo me--prodding me first with his umbrella. 'Poor little chap, ' said he;'and are you lost then?'--and me a London boy of five and more! And hemust needs bring in a kindly young policeman and make a crowd of me, andso march me home. Sobbing, conspicuous, and frightened, I came back fromthe enchanted garden to the steps of my father's house. 

"That is as well as I can remember my vision of that garden--the gardenthat haunts me still. Of course, I can convey nothing of thatindescribable quality of translucent unreality, that _difference_from the common things of experience that hung about it all; but that--that is what happened. If it was a dream, I am sure it was a day-time andaltogether extraordinary dream... H'm!--naturally there followed aterrible questioning, by my aunt, my father, the nurse, the governess--everyone... 

"I tried to tell them, and my father gave me my first thrashing fortelling lies. When afterwards I tried to tell my aunt, she punished meagain for my wicked persistence. Then, as I said, everyone was forbiddento listen to me, to hear a word about it. Even my fairytale books weretaken away from me for a time--because I was too 'imaginative. ' Eh? Yes, they did that! My father belonged to the old school... And my story wasdriven back upon myself. I whispered it to my pillow--my pillow that wasoften damp and salt to my whispering lips with childish tears. And I addedalways to my official and less fervent prayers this one heartfelt request:'Please God I may dream of the garden. Oh! take me back to my garden!'Take me back to my garden! I dreamt often of the garden. I may have addedto it, I may have changed it; I do not know... All this, you understand, is an attempt to reconstruct from fragmentary memories a very earlyexperience. Between that and the other consecutive memories of my boyhoodthere is a gulf. A time came when it seemed impossible I should ever speakof that wonder glimpse again. "

I asked an obvious question. 

"No, " he said. "I don't remember that I ever attempted to find my way backto the garden in those early years. This seems odd to me now, but I thinkthat very probably a closer watch was kept on my movements after thismisadventure to prevent my going astray. No, it wasn't till you knew methat I tried for the garden again. And I believe there was a period--incredible as it seems now--when I forgot the garden altogether--when Iwas about eight or nine it may have been. Do you remember me as a kid atSaint Aethelstan's?"

"Rather!"

"I didn't show any signs, did I, in those days of having a secret dream?"

II. 

He looked up with a sudden smile. 

"Did you ever play North-West Passage with me?... No, of course you didn'tcome my way!"

"It was the sort of game, " he went on, "that every imaginative child playsall day. The idea was the discovery of a North-West Passage to school. Theway to school was plain enough; the game consisted in finding some waythat wasn't plain, starting off ten minutes early in some almost hopelessdirection, and working my way round through unaccustomed streets to mygoal. And one day I got entangled among some rather low-class streets onthe other side of Campden Hill, and I began to think that for once thegame would be against me and that I should get to school late. I triedrather desperately a street that seemed a _cul-de-sac_, and found apassage at the end. I hurried through that with renewed hope. 'I shall doit yet, ' I said, and passed a row of frowsy little shops that wereinexplicably familiar to me, and behold! there was my long white wall andthe green door that led to the enchanted garden!

"The thing whacked upon me suddenly. Then, after all, that garden, thatwonderful garden, wasn't a dream!"

He paused. 

"I suppose my second experience with the green door marks the world ofdifference there is between the busy life of a schoolboy and the infiniteleisure of a child. Anyhow, this second time I didn't for a moment thinkof going in straight away. You see----. For one thing, my mind was full ofthe idea of getting to school in time--set on not breaking my record forpunctuality. I must surely have felt _some_ little desire at least totry the door--yes. I must have felt that... But I seem to remember theattraction of the door mainly as another obstacle to my overmasteringdetermination to get to school. I was immensely interested by thisdiscovery I had made, of course--I went on with my mind full of it--but Iwent on. It didn't check me. I ran past, tugging out my watch, found I hadten minutes still to spare, and then I was going downhill into familiarsurroundings. I got to school, breathless, it is true, and wet withperspiration, but in time. I can remember hanging up my coat and hat... Went right by it and left it behind me. Odd, eh?"

He looked at me thoughtfully, "Of course I didn't know then that itwouldn't always be there. Schoolboys have limited imaginations. I supposeI thought it was an awfully jolly thing to have it there, to know my wayback to it, but there was the school tugging at me. I expect I was a gooddeal distraught and inattentive that morning, recalling what I could ofthe beautiful strange people I should presently see again. Oddly enough Ihad no doubt in my mind that they would be glad to see me... Yes, I musthave thought of the garden that morning just as a jolly sort of place towhich one might resort in the interludes of a strenuous scholastic career. 

"I didn't go that day at all. The next day was a half holiday, and thatmay have weighed with me. Perhaps, too, my state of inattention broughtdown impositions upon me, and docked the margin of time necessary for the_detour_. I don't know. What I do know is that in the meantime theenchanted garden was so much upon my mind that I could not keep it tomyself. 

"I told. What was his name?--a ferrety-looking youngster we used to callSquiff. "

"Young Hopkins, " said I. 

"Hopkins it was. I did not like telling him. I had a feeling that in someway it was against the rules to tell him, but I did. He was walking partof the way home with me; he was talkative, and if we had not talked aboutthe enchanted garden we should have talked of something else, and it wasintolerable to me to think about any other subject. So I blabbed. 

"Well, he told my secret. The next day in the play interval I found myselfsurrounded by half a dozen bigger boys, half teasing, and wholly curiousto hear more of the enchanted garden. There was that big Fawcett--youremember him?--and Carnaby and Morley Reynolds. You weren't there by anychance? No, I think I should have remembered if you were... 

"A boy is a creature of odd feelings. I was, I really believe, in spite ofmy secret self-disgust, a little flattered to have the attention of thesebig fellows. I remember particularly a moment of pleasure caused by thepraise of Crawshaw--you remember Crawshaw major, the son of Crawshaw thecomposer?--who said it was the best lie he had ever heard. But at the sametime there was a really painful undertow of shame at telling what I feltwas indeed a sacred secret. That beast Fawcett made a joke about the girlin green----"

Wallace's voice sank with the keen memory of that shame. "I pretended notto hear, " he said. "Well, then Carnaby suddenly called me a young liar, and disputed with me when I said the thing was true. I said I knew whereto find the green door, could lead them all there in ten minutes. Carnabybecame outrageously virtuous, and said I'd have to--and bear out my wordsor suffer. Did you ever have Carnaby twist your arm? Then perhaps you'llunderstand how it went with me. I swore my story was true. There wasnobody in the school then to save a chap from Carnaby, though Crawshaw putin a word or so. Carnaby had got his game. I grew excited and red-eared, and a little frightened. I behaved altogether like a silly little chap, and the outcome of it all was that instead of starting alone for myenchanted garden, I led the way presently--cheeks flushed, ears hot, eyessmarting, and my soul one burning misery and shame--for a party of sixmocking, curious, and threatening schoolfellows. 

"We never found the white wall and the green door... "

"You mean----?"

"I mean I couldn't find it. I would have found it if I could. 

"And afterwards when I could go alone I couldn't find it. I never foundit. I seem now to have been always looking for it through my school-boydays, but I never came upon it--never. "

"Did the fellows--make it disagreeable?"

"Beastly... Carnaby held a council over me for wanton lying. I rememberhow I sneaked home and upstairs to hide the marks of my blubbering. Butwhen I cried myself to sleep at last it wasn't for Carnaby, but for thegarden, for the beautiful afternoon I had hoped for, for the sweetfriendly women and the waiting playfellows, and the game I had hoped tolearn again, that beautiful forgotten game... 

"I believed firmly that if I had not told--... I had bad times afterthat--crying at night and wool-gathering by day. For two terms I slackenedand had bad reports. Do you remember? Of course you would! It was_you_--your beating me in mathematics that brought me back to thegrind again. "

III. 

For a time my friend stared silently into the red heart of the fire. Thenhe said: "I never saw it again until I was seventeen. 

"It leapt upon me for the third time--as I was driving to Paddington on myway to Oxford and a scholarship. I had just one momentary glimpse. I wasleaning over the apron of my hansom smoking a cigarette, and no doubtthinking myself no end of a man of the world, and suddenly there was thedoor, the wall, the dear sense of unforgettable and still attainablethings. 

"We clattered by--I too taken by surprise to stop my cab until we werewell past and round a corner. Then I had a queer moment, a double anddivergent movement of my will: I tapped the little door in the roof of thecab, and brought my arm down to pull out my watch. 'Yes, sir!' said thecabman, smartly. 'Er--well--it's nothing, ' I cried. '_My_ mistake! Wehaven't much time! Go on!' And he went on... 

"I got my scholarship. And the night after I was told of that I sat overmy fire in my little upper room, my study, in my father's house, with hispraise--his rare praise--and his sound counsels ringing in my ears, and Ismoked my favourite pipe--the formidable bulldog of adolescence--andthought of that door in the long white wall. 'If I had stopped, ' Ithought, 'I should have missed my scholarship, I should have missedOxford--muddled all the fine career before me! I begin to see thingsbetter!' I fell musing deeply, but I did not doubt then this career ofmine was a thing that merited sacrifice. 

"Those dear friends and that clear atmosphere seemed very sweet to me, very fine but remote. My grip was fixing now upon the world. I saw anotherdoor opening--the door of my career. "

He stared again into the fire. Its red light picked out a stubbornstrength in his face for just one flickering moment, and then it vanishedagain. 

"Well, " he said and sighed, "I have served that career. I have done--muchwork, much hard work. But I have dreamt of the enchanted garden a thousanddreams, and seen its door, or at least glimpsed its door, four times sincethen. Yes--four times. For a while this world was so bright andinteresting, seemed so full of meaning and opportunity, that thehalf-effaced charm of the garden was by comparison gentle and remote. Whowants to pat panthers on the way to dinner with pretty women anddistinguished men? I came down to London from Oxford, a man of boldpromise that I have done something to redeem. Something--and yet therehave been disappointments... 

"Twice I have been in love--I will not dwell on that--but once, as I wentto someone who, I knew, doubted whether I dared to come, I took a shortcut at a venture through an unfrequented road near Earl's Court, and sohappened on a white wall and a familiar green door. 'Odd!' said I tomyself, 'but I thought this place was on Campden Hill. It's the place Inever could find somehow--like counting Stonehenge--the place of thatqueer daydream of mine. ' And I went by it intent upon my purpose. It hadno appeal to me that afternoon. 

"I had just a moment's impulse to try the door, three steps aside wereneeded at the most--though I was sure enough in my heart that it wouldopen to me--and then I thought that doing so might delay me on the way tothat appointment in which I thought my honour was involved. Afterwards Iwas sorry for my punctuality--might at least have peeped in, I thought, and waved a hand to those panthers, but I knew enough by this time not toseek again belatedly that which is not found by seeking. Yes, that timemade me very sorry... 

"Years of hard work after that, and never a sight of the door. It's onlyrecently it has come back to me. With it there has come a sense as thoughsome thin tarnish had spread itself over my world. I began to think of itas a sorrowful and bitter thing that I should never see that door again. Perhaps I was suffering a little from overwork--perhaps it was what I'veheard spoken of as the feeling of forty. I don't know. But certainly thekeen brightness that makes effort easy has gone out of things recently, and that just at a time--with all these new political developments--when Iought to be working. Odd, isn't it? But I do begin to find life toilsome, its rewards, as I come near them, cheap. I began a little while ago towant the garden quite badly. Yes--and I've seen it three times. "

"The garden?"

"No---the door! And I haven't gone in!"

He leant over the table to me, with an enormous sorrow in his voice as hespoke. "Thrice I have had my chance--_thrice_! If ever that dooroffers itself to me again, I swore, I will go in, out of this dust andheat, out of this dry glitter of vanity, out of these toilsome futilities. I will go and never return. This time I will stay... I swore it, and whenthe time came--_I didn't go_. 

"Three times in one year have I passed that door and failed to enter. Three times in the last year. 

"The first time was on the night of the snatch division on the Tenants'Redemption Bill, on which the Government was saved by a majority of three. You remember? No one on our side--perhaps very few on the opposite side--expected the end that night. Then the debate collapsed like eggshells. Iand Hotchkiss were dining with his cousin at Brentford; we were bothunpaired, and we were called up by telephone, and set off at once in hiscousin's motor. We got in barely in time, and on the way we passed my walland door--livid in the moonlight, blotched with hot yellow as the glare ofour lamps lit it, but unmistakable. 'My God!' cried I. 'What?' saidHotchkiss. 'Nothing!' I answered, and the moment passed. 

"'I've made a great sacrifice, ' I told the whip as I got in. 'They allhave, ' he said, and hurried by. 

"I do not see how I could have done otherwise then. And the next occasionwas as I rushed to my father's bedside to bid that stern old man farewell. Then, too, the claims of life were imperative. But the third time wasdifferent; it happened a week ago. It fills me with hot remorse to recallit. I was with Gurker and Ralphs--it's no secret now, you know, that I'vehad my talk with Gurker. We had been dining at Frobisher's, and the talkhad become intimate between us. The question of my place in thereconstructed Ministry lay always just over the boundary of thediscussion. Yes--yes. That's all settled. It needn't be talked about yet, but there's no reason to keep a secret from you... Yes--thanks! thanks!But let me tell you my story. 

"Then, on that night things were very much in the air. My position was avery delicate one. I was keenly anxious to get some definite word fromGurker, but was hampered by Ralphs' presence. I was using the best powerof my brain to keep that light and careless talk not too obviouslydirected to the point that concerned me. I had to. Ralphs' behaviour sincehas more than justified my caution... Ralphs, I knew, would leave usbeyond the Kensington High Street, and then I could surprise Gurker by asudden frankness. One has sometimes to resort to these little devices... And then it was that in the margin of my field of vision I became awareonce more of the white wall, the green door before us down the road. 

"We passed it talking. I passed it. I can still see the shadow of Gurker'smarked profile, his opera hat tilted forward over his prominent nose, themany folds of his neck wrap going before my shadow and Ralphs' as wesauntered past. 

"I passed within twenty inches of the door. 'If I say good-night to them, and go in, ' I asked myself, 'what will happen?' And I was all a-tingle forthat word with Gurker. 

"I could not answer that question in the tangle of my other problems. 'They will think me mad, ' I thought. 'And suppose I vanish now!---Amazingdisappearance of a prominent politician!' That weighed with me. A thousandinconceivably petty worldlinesses weighed with me in that crisis. "

Then he turned on me with a sorrowful smile, and, speaking slowly, "Here Iam!" he said. 

"Here I am!" he repeated, "and my chance has gone from me. Three times inone year the door has been offered me--the door that goes into peace, intodelight, into a beauty beyond dreaming, a kindness no man on earth canknow. And I have rejected it, Redmond, and it has gone----"

"How do you know?"

"I know. I know. I am left now to work it out, to stick to the tasks thatheld me so strongly when my moments came. You say I have success--thisvulgar, tawdry, irksome, envied thing. I have it. " He had a walnut in hisbig hand. "If that was my success, " he said, and crushed it, and held itout for me to see. 

"Let me tell you something, Redmond. This loss is destroying me. For twomonths, for ten weeks nearly now, I have done no work at all, except themost necessary and urgent duties. My soul is full of inappeasable regrets. At nights--when it is less likely I shall be recognised--I go out. Iwander. Yes. I wonder what people would think of that if they knew. ACabinet Minister, the responsible head of that most vital of alldepartments, wandering alone--grieving--sometimes near audibly lamenting--for a door, for a garden!"

IV. 

I can see now his rather pallid face, and the unfamiliar sombre fire thathad come into his eyes. I see him very vividly to-night. I sit recallinghis words, his tones, and last evening's _Westminster Gazette_ stilllies on my sofa, containing the notice of his death. At lunch to-day theclub was busy with his death. We talked of nothing else. 

They found his body very early yesterday morning in a deep excavation nearEast Kensington Station. It is one of two shafts that have been made inconnection with an extension of the railway southward. It is protectedfrom the intrusion of the public by a hoarding upon the high road, inwhich a small doorway has been cut for the convenience of some of theworkmen who live in that direction. The doorway was left unfastenedthrough a misunderstanding between two gangers, and through it he made hisway... 

My mind is darkened with questions and riddles. 

It would seem he walked all the way from the House that night--he hasfrequently walked home during the past Session--and so it is I figure hisdark form coming along the late and empty streets, wrapped up, intent. Andthen did the pale electric lights near the station cheat the roughplanking into a semblance of white? Did that fatal unfastened door awakensome memory?

Was there, after all, ever any green door in the wall at all?

I do not know. I have told his story as he told it to me. There are timeswhen I believe that Wallace was no more than the victim of the coincidencebetween a rare but not unprecedented type of hallucination and a carelesstrap, but that indeed is not my profoundest belief. You may think mesuperstitious, if you will, and foolish; but, indeed, I am more thanhalf convinced that he had, in truth, an abnormal gift, and a sense, something--I know not what---that in the guise of wall and door offeredhim an outlet, a secret and peculiar passage of escape into another andaltogether more beautiful world. At any rate, you will say, it betrayedhim in the end. But did it betray him? There you touch the inmost mysteryof these dreamers, these men of vision and the imagination. We see ourworld fair and common, the hoarding and the pit. By our daylight standardhe walked out of security into darkness, danger, and death. 

But did he see like that?

 XXXII. 

 THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND. 

Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the snowsof Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there lies thatmysterious mountain valley, cut off from the world of men, the Country ofthe Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world thatmen might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy pass intoits equable meadows; and thither indeed men came, a family or so ofPeruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanishruler. Then came the stupendous outbreak of Mindobamba, when it was nightin Quito for seventeen days, and the water was boiling at Yaguachi and allthe fish floating dying even as far as Guayaquil; everywhere along thePacific slopes there were land-slips and swift thawings and sudden floods, and one whole side of the old Arauca crest slipped and came down inthunder, and cut off the Country of the Blind for ever from the exploringfeet of men. But one of these early settlers had chanced to be on thehither side of the gorges when the world had so terribly shaken itself, and he perforce had to forget his wife and his child and all the friendsand possessions he had left up there, and start life over again in thelower world. He started it again but ill, blindness overtook him, and hedied of punishment in the mines; but the story he told begot a legend thatlingers along the length of the Cordilleras of the Andes to this day. 

He told of his reason for venturing back from that fastness, into which hehad first been carried lashed to a llama, beside a vast bale of gear, whenhe was a child. The valley, he said, had in it all that the heart of mancould desire--sweet water, pasture, and even climate, slopes of rich brownsoil with tangles of a shrub that bore an excellent fruit, and on one sidegreat hanging forests of pine that held the avalanches high. Far overhead, on three sides, vast cliffs of grey-green rock were capped by cliffs ofice; but the glacier stream came not to them but flowed away by thefarther slopes, and only now and then huge ice masses fell on the valleyside. In this valley it neither rained nor snowed, but the abundantsprings gave a rich green pasture, that irrigation would spread over allthe valley space. The settlers did well indeed there. Their beasts didwell and multiplied, and but one thing marred their happiness. Yet it wasenough to mar it greatly. A strange disease had come upon them, and hadmade all the children born to them there--and indeed, several olderchildren also--blind. It was to seek some charm or antidote against thisplague of blindness that he had with fatigue and danger and difficultyreturned down the gorge. In those days, in such cases, men did not thinkof germs and infections but of sins; and it seemed to him that the reasonof this affliction must lie in the negligence of these priestlessimmigrants to set up a shrine so soon as they entered the valley. Hewanted a shrine--a handsome, cheap, effectual shrine--to be erected in thevalley; he wanted relics and such-like potent things of faith, blessedobjects and mysterious medals and prayers. In his wallet he had a bar ofnative silver for which he would not account; he insisted there was nonein the valley with something of the insistence of an inexpert liar. Theyhad all clubbed their money and ornaments together, having little need forsuch treasure up there, he said, to buy them holy help against their ill. I figure this dim-eyed young mountaineer, sunburnt, gaunt, and anxious, hat-brim clutched feverishly, a man all unused to the ways of the lowerworld, telling this story to some keen-eyed, attentive priest before thegreat convulsion; I can picture him presently seeking to return with piousand infallible remedies against that trouble, and the infinite dismay withwhich he must have faced the tumbled vastness where the gorge had oncecome out. But the rest of his story of mischances is lost to me, save thatI know of his evil death after several years. Poor stray from thatremoteness! The stream that had once made the gorge now bursts from themouth of a rocky cave, and the legend his poor, ill-told story set goingdeveloped into the legend of a race of blind men somewhere "over there"one may still hear to-day. 

And amidst the little population of that now isolated and forgotten valleythe disease ran its course. The old became groping and purblind, the youngsaw but dimly, and the children that were born to them saw never at all. But life was very easy in that snow-rimmed basin, lost to all the world, with neither thorns nor briars, with no evil insects nor any beasts savethe gentle breed of llamas they had lugged and thrust and followed up thebeds of the shrunken rivers in the gorges up which they had come. Theseeing had become purblind so gradually that they scarcely noted theirloss. They guided the sightless youngsters hither and thither until theyknew the whole Valley marvellously, and when at last sight died out amongthem the race lived on. They had even time to adapt themselves to theblind control of fire, which they made carefully in stoves of stone. Theywere a simple strain of people at the first, unlettered, only slightlytouched with the Spanish civilisation, but with something of a traditionof the arts of old Peru and of its lost philosophy. Generation followedgeneration. They forgot many things; they devised many things. Theirtradition of the greater world they came from became mythical in colourand uncertain. In all things save sight they were strong and able, andpresently the chance of birth and heredity sent one who had an originalmind and who could talk and persuade among them, and then afterwardsanother. These two passed, leaving their effects, and the little communitygrew in numbers and in understanding, and met and settled social andeconomic problems that arose. Generation followed generation. Generationfollowed generation. There came a time when a child was born who wasfifteen generations from that ancestor who went out of the valley with abar of silver to seek God's aid, and who never returned. Thereabouts itchanced that a man came into this community from the outer world. And thisis the story of that man. 

He was a mountaineer from the country near Quito, a man who had been downto the sea and had seen the world, a reader of books in an original way, an acute and enterprising man, and he was taken on by a party ofEnglishmen who had come out to Ecuador to climb mountains, to replace oneof their three Swiss guides who had fallen ill. He climbed here and heclimbed there, and then came the attempt on Parascotopetl, the Matterhornof the Andes, in which he was lost to the outer world. The story of theaccident has been written a dozen times. Pointer's narrative is the best. He tells how the little party worked their difficult and almost verticalway up to the very foot of the last and greatest precipice, and how theybuilt a night shelter amidst the snow upon a little shelf of rock, and, with a touch of real dramatic power, how presently they found Nunez hadgone from them. They shouted, and there was no reply; shouted andwhistled, and for the rest of that night they slept no more. 

As the morning broke they saw the traces of his fall. It seems impossiblehe could have uttered a sound. He had slipped eastward towards the unknownside of the mountain; far below he had struck a steep slope of snow, andploughed his way down it in the midst of a snow avalanche. His track wentstraight to the edge of a frightful precipice, and beyond that everythingwas hidden. Far, far below, and hazy with distance, they could see treesrising out of a narrow, shut-in valley--the lost Country of the Blind. Butthey did not know it was the lost Country of the Blind, nor distinguish itin any way from any other narrow streak of upland valley. Unnerved by thisdisaster, they abandoned their attempt in the afternoon, and Pointer wascalled away to the war before he could make another attack. To this dayParascotopetl lifts an unconquered crest, and Pointer's shelter crumblesunvisited amidst the snows. 

And the man who fell survived. 

At the end of the slope he fell a thousand feet, and came down in themidst of a cloud of snow upon a snow slope even steeper than the oneabove. Down this he was whirled, stunned and insensible, but without abone broken in his body; and then at last came to gentler slopes, and atlast rolled out and lay still, buried amidst a softening heap of the whitemasses that had accompanied and saved him. He came to himself with a dimfancy that he was ill in bed; then realised his position with amountaineer's intelligence, and worked himself loose and, after a rest orso, out until he saw the stars. He rested flat upon his chest for a space, wondering where he was and what had happened to him. He explored hislimbs, and discovered that several of his buttons were gone and his coatturned over his head. His knife had gone from his pocket and his hat waslost, though he had tied it under his chin. He recalled that he had beenlooking for loose stones to raise his piece of the shelter wall. Hisice-axe had disappeared. 

He decided he must have fallen, and looked up to see, exaggerated by theghastly light of the rising moon, the tremendous flight he had taken. Fora while he lay, gazing blankly at that vast pale cliff towering above, rising moment by moment out of a subsiding tide of darkness. Itsphantasmal, mysterious beauty held him for a space, and then he was seizedwith a paroxysm of sobbing laughter... 

After a great interval of time he became aware that he was near the loweredge of the snow. Below, down what was now a moonlit and practicableslope, he saw the dark and broken appearance of rock-strewn turf. Hestruggled to his feet, aching in every joint and limb, got down painfullyfrom the heaped loose snow about him, went downward until he was on theturf, and there dropped rather than lay beside a boulder, drank deep fromthe flask in his inner pocket, and instantly fell asleep... 

He was awakened by the singing of birds in the trees far below. 

He sat up and perceived he was on a little alp at the foot of a vastprecipice, that was grooved by the gully down which he and his snow hadcome. Over against him another wall of rock reared itself against the sky. The gorge between these precipices ran east and west and was full of themorning sunlight, which lit to the westward the mass of fallen mountainthat closed the descending gorge. Below him it seemed there was aprecipice equally steep, but behind the snow in the gully he found a sortof chimney-cleft dripping with snow-water down which a desperate man mightventure. He found it easier than it seemed, and came at last to anotherdesolate alp, and then after a rock climb of no particular difficulty to asteep slope of trees. He took his bearings and turned his face up thegorge, for he saw it opened out above upon green meadows, among which henow glimpsed quite distinctly a cluster of stone huts of unfamiliarfashion. At times his progress was like clambering along the face of awall, and after a time the rising sun ceased to strike along the gorge, the voices of the singing birds died away, and the air grew cold and darkabout him. But the distant valley with its houses was all the brighter forthat. He came presently to talus, and among the rocks he noted--for he wasan observant man--an unfamiliar fern that seemed to clutch out of thecrevices with intense green hands. He picked a frond or so and gnawed itsstalk and found it helpful. 

About midday he came at last out of the throat of the gorge into the plainand the sunlight. He was stiff and weary; he sat down in the shadow of arock, filled up his flask with water from a spring and drank it down, andremained for a time resting before he went on to the houses. 

They were very strange to his eyes, and indeed the whole aspect of thatvalley became, as he regarded it, queerer and more unfamiliar. The greaterpart of its surface was lush green meadow, starred with many beautifulflowers, irrigated with extraordinary care, and bearing evidence ofsystematic cropping piece by piece. High up and ringing the valley aboutwas a wall, and what appeared to be a circumferential water-channel, fromwhich the little trickles of water that fed the meadow plants came, and onthe higher slopes above this flocks of llamas cropped the scanty herbage. Sheds, apparently shelters or feeding-places for the llamas, stood againstthe boundary wall here and there. The irrigation streams ran together intoa main channel down the centre of the valley, and this was enclosed oneither side by a wall breast high. This gave a singularly urban quality tothis secluded place, a quality that was greatly enhanced by the fact thata number of paths paved with black and white stones, and each with acurious little kerb at the side, ran hither and thither in an orderlymanner. The houses of the central village were quite unlike the casual andhiggledy-piggledy agglomeration of the mountain villages he knew; theystood in a continuous row on either side of a central street ofastonishing cleanness; here and there their particoloured facade waspierced by a door, and not a solitary window broke their even frontage. They were particoloured with extraordinary irregularity, smeared with asort of plaster that was sometimes grey, sometimes drab, sometimesslate-coloured or dark brown; and it was the sight of this wild plasteringfirst brought the word "blind" into the thoughts of the explorer. "Thegood man who did that, " he thought, "must have been as blind as a bat. "

He descended a steep place, and so came to the wall and channel that ranabout the valley, near where the latter spouted out its surplus contentsinto the deeps of the gorge in a thin and wavering thread of cascade. Hecould now see a number of men and women resting on piled heaps of grass, as if taking a siesta, in the remoter part of the meadow, and nearer thevillage a number of recumbent children, and then nearer at hand three mencarrying pails on yokes along a little path that ran from the encirclingwall towards the houses. These latter were clad in garments of llama clothand boots and belts of leather, and they wore caps of cloth with back andear flaps. They followed one another in single file, walking slowly andyawning as they walked, like men who have been up all night. There wassomething so reassuringly prosperous and respectable in their bearing thatafter a moment's hesitation Nunez stood forward as conspicuously aspossible upon his rock, and gave vent to a mighty shout that echoed roundthe valley. 

The three men stopped, and moved their heads as though they were lookingabout them. They turned their faces this way and that, and Nunezgesticulated with freedom. But they did not appear to see him for all hisgestures, and after a time, directing themselves towards the mountains faraway to the right, they shouted as if in answer. Nunez bawled again, andthen once more, and as he gestured ineffectually the word "blind" came upto the top of his thoughts. "The fools must be blind, " he said. 

When at last, after much shouting and wrath, Nunez crossed the stream by alittle bridge, came through a gate in the wall, and approached them, hewas sure that they were blind. He was sure that this was the Country ofthe Blind of which the legends told. Conviction had sprung upon him, and asense of great and rather enviable adventure. The three stood side byside, not looking at him, but with their ears directed towards him, judging him by his unfamiliar steps. They stood close together like men alittle afraid, and he could see their eyelids closed and sunken, as thoughthe very balls beneath had shrunk away. There was an expression near aweon their faces. 

"A man, " one said, in hardly recognisable Spanish--"a man it is--a man ora spirit--coming down from the rocks. "

But Nunez advanced with the confident steps of a youth who enters uponlife. All the old stories of the lost valley and the Country of the Blindhad come back to his mind, and through his thoughts ran this old proverb, as if it were a refrain--

"In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King. "

"In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King. "

And very civilly he gave them greeting. He talked to them and used hiseyes. 

"Where does he come from, brother Pedro?" asked one. 

"Down out of the rocks. "

"Over the mountains I come, " said Nunez, "out of the country beyondthere--where men can see. From near Bogota, where there are a hundredthousands of people, and where the city passes out of sight. "

"Sight?" muttered Pedro. "Sight?"

"He comes, " said the second blind man, "out of the rocks. "

The cloth of their coats Nunez saw was curiously fashioned, each with adifferent sort of stitching. 

They startled him by a simultaneous movement towards him, each with a handoutstretched. He stepped back from the advance of these spread fingers. 

"Come hither, " said the third blind man, following his motion andclutching him neatly. 

And they held Nunez and felt him over, saying no word further until theyhad done so. 

"Carefully, " he cried, with a finger in his eye, and found they thoughtthat organ, with its fluttering lids, a queer thing in him. They went overit again. 

"A strange creature, Correa, " said the one called Pedro. "Feel thecoarseness of his hair. Like a llama's hair. "

"Rough he is as the rocks that begot him, " said Correa, investigatingNunez's unshaven chin with a soft and slightly moist hand. "Perhaps hewill grow finer. " Nunez struggled a little under their examination, butthey gripped him firm. 

"Carefully, " he said again. 

"He speaks, " said the third man. "Certainly he is a man. "

"Ugh!" said Pedro, at the roughness of his coat. 

"And you have come into the world?" asked Pedro. 

"_Out_ of the world. Over mountains and glaciers; right over abovethere, half-way to the sun. Out of the great big world that goes down, twelve days' journey to the sea. "

They scarcely seemed to heed him. "Our fathers have told us men may bemade by the forces of Nature, " said Correa. "It is the warmth of thingsand moisture, and rottenness--rottenness. "

"Let us lead him to the elders, " said Pedro. 

"Shout first, " said Correa, "lest the children be afraid... This is amarvellous occasion. "

So they shouted, and Pedro went first and took Nunez by the hand to leadhim to the houses. 

He drew his hand away. "I can see, " he said. 

"See?" said Correa. 

"Yes, see, " said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against Pedro'spail. 

"His senses are still imperfect, " said the third blind man. "He stumbles, and talks unmeaning words. Lead him by the hand. "

"As you will, " said Nunez, and was led along, laughing. 

It seemed they knew nothing of sight. 

Well, all in good time he would teach them. 

He heard people shouting, and saw a number of figures gathering togetherin the middle roadway of the village. 

He found it tax his nerve and patience more than he had anticipated, thatfirst encounter with the population of the Country of the Blind. The placeseemed larger as he drew near to it, and the smeared plasterings queerer, and a crowd of children and men and women (the women and girls, he waspleased to note, had some of them quite sweet faces, for all that theireyes were shut and sunken) came about him, holding on to him, touching himwith soft, sensitive hands, smelling at him, and listening at every wordhe spoke. Some of the maidens and children, however, kept aloof as ifafraid, and indeed his voice seemed coarse and rude beside their softernotes. They mobbed him. His three guides kept close to him with an effectof proprietorship, and said again and again, "A wild man out of the rock. "

"Bogota, " he said. "Bogota. Over the mountain crests. "

"A wild man--using wild words, " said Pedro. "Did you hear that--_Bogota_? His mind is hardly formed yet. He has only the beginningsof speech. "

A little boy nipped his hand. "Bogota!" he said mockingly. 

"Ay! A city to your village. I come from the great world--where men haveeyes and see. "

"His name's Bogota, " they said. 

"He stumbled, " said Correa, "stumbled twice as we came hither. "

"Bring him to the elders. "

And they thrust him suddenly through a doorway into a room as black aspitch, save at the end there faintly glowed a fire. The crowd closed inbehind him and shut out all but the faintest glimmer of day, and before hecould arrest himself he had fallen headlong over the feet of a seated man. His arm, outflung, struck the face of someone else as he went down; hefelt the soft impact of features and heard a cry of anger, and for amoment he struggled against a number of hands that clutched him. It was aone-sided fight. An inkling of the situation came to him, and he layquiet. 

"I fell down, " he said; "I couldn't see in this pitchy darkness. "

There was a pause as if the unseen persons about him tried to understandhis words. Then the voice of Correa said: "He is but newly formed. Hestumbles as he walks and mingles words that mean nothing with his speech. "

Others also said things about him that he heard or understood imperfectly. 

"May I sit up?" he asked, in a pause. "I will not struggle against youagain. "

They consulted and let him rise. 

The voice of an older man began to question him, and Nunez found himselftrying to explain the great world out of which he had fallen, and the skyand mountains and sight and such-like marvels, to these elders who sat indarkness in the Country of the Blind. And they would believe andunderstand nothing whatever he told them, a thing quite outside hisexpectation. They would not even understand many of his words. Forfourteen generations these people had been blind and cut off from all theseeing world; the names for all the things of sight had faded and changed;the story of the outer world was faded and changed to a child's story; andthey had ceased to concern themselves with anything beyond the rockyslopes above their circling wall. Blind men of genius had arisen amongthem and questioned the shreds of belief and tradition they had broughtwith them from their seeing days, and had dismissed all these things asidle fancies, and replaced them with new and saner explanations. Much oftheir imagination had shrivelled with their eyes, and they had made forthemselves new imaginations with their ever more sensitive ears andfinger-tips. Slowly Nunez realised this; that his expectation of wonderand reverence at his origin and his gifts was not to be borne out; andafter his poor attempt to explain sight to them had been set aside as theconfused version of a new-made being describing the marvels of hisincoherent sensations, he subsided, a little dashed, into listening totheir instruction. And the eldest of the blind men explained to him lifeand philosophy and religion, how that the world (meaning their valley) hadbeen first an empty hollow in the rocks, and then had come, first, inanimate things without the gift of touch, and llamas and a few othercreatures that had little sense, and then men, and at last angels, whomone could hear singing and making fluttering sounds, but whom no one couldtouch at all, which puzzled Nunez greatly until he thought of the birds. 

He went on to tell Nunez how this time had been divided into the warm andthe cold, which are the blind equivalents of day and night, and how it wasgood to sleep in the warm and work during the cold, so that now, but forhis advent, the whole town of the blind would have been asleep. He saidNunez must have been specially created to learn and serve the wisdom, theyhad acquired, and that for all his mental incoherency and stumblingbehaviour he must have courage, and do his best to learn, and at that allthe people in the doorway murmured encouragingly. He said the night--forthe blind call their day night--was now far gone, and it behoved every oneto go back to sleep. He asked Nunez if he knew how to sleep, and Nunezsaid he did, but that before sleep he wanted food. 

They brought him food--llama's milk in a bowl, and rough salted bread--andled him into a lonely place, to eat out of their hearing, and afterwardsto slumber until the chill of the mountain evening roused them to begintheir day again. But Nunez slumbered not at all. 

Instead, he sat up in the place where they had left him, resting his limbsand turning the unanticipated circumstances of his arrival over and overin his mind. 

Every now and then he laughed, sometimes with amusement, and sometimeswith indignation. 

"Unformed mind!" he said. "Got no senses yet! They little know they'vebeen insulting their heaven-sent king and master. I see I must bring themto reason. Let me think--let me think. "

He was still thinking when the sun set. 

Nunez had an eye for all beautiful things, and it seemed to him that theglow upon the snowfields and glaciers that rose about the valley on everyside was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. His eyes went fromthat inaccessible glory to the village and irrigated fields, fast sinkinginto the twilight, and suddenly a wave of emotion took him, and he thankedGod from the bottom of his heart that the power of sight had been givenhim. 

He heard a voice calling to him from out of the village. "Ya ho there, Bogota! Come hither!"

At that he stood up smiling. He would show these people once and for allwhat sight would do for a man. They would seek him, but not find him. 

"You move not, Bogota, " said the voice. 

He laughed noiselessly, and made two stealthy steps aside from the path. 

"Trample not on the grass, Bogota; that is not allowed. "

Nunez had scarcely heard the sound he made himself. He stopped amazed. 

The owner of the voice came running up the piebald path towards him. 

He stepped back into the pathway. "Here I am, " he said. 

"Why did you not come when I called you?" said the blind man. "Must you beled like a child? Cannot you hear the path as you walk?"

Nunez laughed. "I can see it, " he said. 

"There is no such word as _see_, " said the blind man, after a pause. "Cease this folly, and follow the sound of my feet. "

Nunez followed, a little annoyed. 

"My time will come, " he said. 

"You'll learn, " the blind man answered. "There is much to learn in theworld. "

"Has no one told you, 'In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man isKing'?"

"What is blind?" asked the blind man carelessly over his shoulder. 

Four days passed, and the fifth found the King of the Blind stillincognito, as a clumsy and useless stranger among his subjects. 

It was, he found, much more difficult to proclaim himself than he hadsupposed, and in the meantime, while he meditated his _coup d'état, _he did what he was told and learnt the manners and customs of the Countryof the Blind. He found working and going about at night a particularlyirksome thing, and he decided that that should be the first thing he wouldchange. 

They led a simple, laborious life, these people, with all the elements ofvirtue and happiness, as these things can be understood by men. Theytoiled, but not oppressively; they had food and clothing sufficient fortheir needs; they had days and seasons of rest; they made much of musicand singing, and there was love among them, and little children. 

It was marvellous with what confidence and precision they went about theirordered world. Everything, you see, had been made to fit their needs; eachof the radiating paths of the valley area had a constant angle to theothers, and was distinguished by a special notch upon its kerbing; allobstacles and irregularities of path or meadow had long since been clearedaway; all their methods and procedure arose naturally from their specialneeds. Their senses had become marvellously acute; they could hear andjudge the slightest gesture of a man a dozen paces away--could hear thevery beating of his heart. Intonation had long replaced expression withthem, and touches gesture, and their work with hoe and spade and fork wasas free and confident as garden work can be. Their sense of smell wasextraordinarily fine; they could distinguish individual differences asreadily as a dog can, and they went about the tending of the llamas, wholived among the rocks above and came to the wall for food and shelter, with ease and confidence. It was only when at last Nunez sought to asserthimself that he found how easy and confident their movements could be. 

He rebelled only after he had tried persuasion. 

He tried at first on several occasions to tell them of sight. "Look youhere, you people, " he said. "There are things you do not understand inme. "

Once or twice one or two of them attended to him; they sat with facesdowncast and ears turned intelligently towards him, and he did his best totell them what it was to see. Among his hearers was a girl, with eyelidsless red and sunken than the others, so that one could almost fancy shewas hiding eyes, whom especially he hoped to persuade. He spoke of thebeauties of sight, of watching the mountains, of the sky and the sunrise, and they heard him with amused incredulity that presently becamecondemnatory. They told him there were indeed no mountains at all, butthat the end of the rocks where the llamas grazed was indeed the end ofthe world; thence sprang a cavernous roof of the universe, from which thedew and the avalanches fell; and when he maintained stoutly the world hadneither end nor roof such as they supposed, they said his thoughts werewicked. So far as he could describe sky and clouds and stars to them itseemed to them a hideous void, a terrible blankness in the place of thesmooth roof to things in which they believed--it was an article of faithwith them that the cavern roof was exquisitely smooth to the touch. He sawthat in some manner he shocked them, and gave up that aspect of the matteraltogether, and tried to show them the practical value of sight. Onemorning he saw Pedro in the path called Seventeen and coming towards thecentral houses, but still too far off for hearing or scent, and he toldthem as much. "In a little while, " he prophesied, "Pedro will be here. " Anold man remarked that Pedro had no business on path Seventeen, and then, as if in confirmation, that individual as he drew near turned and wenttransversely into path Ten, and so back with nimble paces towards theouter wall. They mocked Nunez when Pedro did not arrive, and afterwards, when he asked Pedro questions to clear his character, Pedro denied andoutfaced him, and was afterwards hostile to him. 

Then he induced them to let him go a long way up the sloping meadowstowards the wall with one complacent individual, and to him he promised todescribe all that happened among the houses. He noted certain goings andcomings, but the things that really seemed to signify to these peoplehappened inside of or behind the windowless houses--the only things theytook note of to test him by--and of these he could see or tell nothing;and it was after the failure of this attempt, and the ridicule they couldnot repress, that he resorted to force. He thought of seizing a spade andsuddenly smiting one or two of them to earth, and so in fair combatshowing the advantage of eyes. He went so far with that resolution as toseize his spade, and then he discovered a new thing about himself, andthat was that it was impossible for him to hit a blind man in cold blood. 

He hesitated, and found them all aware that he had snatched up the spade. They stood alert, with their heads on one side, and bent ears towards himfor what he would do next. 

"Put that spade down, " said one, and he felt a sort of helpless horror. Hecame near obedience. 

Then he thrust one backwards against a house wall, and fled past him andout of the village. 

He went athwart one of their meadows, leaving a track of trampled grassbehind his feet, and presently sat down by the side of one of their ways. He felt something of the buoyancy that comes to all men in the beginningof a fight, but more perplexity. He began to realise that you cannot evenfight happily with creatures who stand upon a different mental basis toyourself. Far away he saw a number of men carrying spades and sticks comeout of the street of houses, and advance in a spreading line along theseveral paths towards him. They advanced slowly, speaking frequently toone another, and ever and again the whole cordon would halt and sniff theair and listen. 

The first time they did this Nunez laughed. But afterwards he did notlaugh. 

One struck his trail in the meadow grass, and came stooping and feelinghis way along it. 

For five minutes he watched the slow extension of the cordon, and then hisvague disposition to do something forthwith became frantic. He stood up, went a pace or so towards the circumferential wall, turned, and went backa little way. There they all stood in a crescent, still and listening. 

He also stood still, gripping his spade very tightly in both hands. Shouldhe charge them?

The pulse in his ears ran into the rhythm of "In the Country of the Blindthe One-eyed Man is King!"

Should he charge them?

He looked back at the high and unclimbable wall behind--unclimbablebecause of its smooth plastering, but withal pierced with many littledoors, and at the approaching line of seekers. Behind these others werenow coming out of the street of houses. 

Should he charge them?

"Bogota!" called one. "Bogota! where are you?"

He gripped his spade still tighter, and advanced down the meadows towardsthe place of habitations, and directly he moved they converged upon him. "I'll hit them if they touch me, " he swore; "by Heaven, I will. I'll hit. "He called aloud, "Look here, I'm going to do what I like in this valley. Do you hear? I'm going to do what I like and go where I like!"

They were moving in upon him quickly, groping, yet moving rapidly. It waslike playing blind man's buff, with everyone blindfolded except one. "Gethold of him!" cried one. He found himself in the arc of a loose curve ofpursuers. He felt suddenly he must be active and resolute. 

"You don't understand, " he cried in a voice that was meant to be great andresolute, and which broke. "You are blind, and I can see. Leave me alone!"

"Bogota! Put down that spade, and come off the grass!"

The last order, grotesque in its urban familiarity, produced a gust ofanger. 

"I'll hurt you, " he said, sobbing with emotion. "By Heaven, I'll hurt you. Leave me alone!"

He began to run, not knowing clearly where to run. He ran from the nearestblind man, because it was a horror to hit him. He stopped, and then made adash to escape from their closing ranks. He made for where a gap was wide, and the men on either side, with a quick perception of the approach of hispaces, rushed in on one another. He sprang forward, and then saw he mustbe caught, and _swish_! the spade had struck. He felt the soft thudof hand and arm, and the man was down with a yell of pain, and he wasthrough. 

Through! And then he was close to the street of houses again, and blindmen, whirling spades and stakes, were running with a sort of reasonedswiftness hither and thither. 

He heard steps behind him just in time, and found a tall man rushingforward and swiping at the sound of him. He lost his nerve, hurled hisspade a yard wide at his antagonist, and whirled about and fled, fairlyyelling as he dodged another. 

He was panic-stricken. He ran furiously to and fro, dodging when there wasno need to dodge, and in his anxiety to see on every side of him at once, stumbling. For a moment he was down and they heard his fall. Far away inthe circumferential wall a little doorway looked like heaven, and he setoff in a wild rush for it. He did not even look round at his pursuersuntil it was gained, and he had stumbled across the bridge, clambered alittle way among the rocks, to the surprise and dismay of a young llama, who went leaping out of sight, and lay down sobbing for breath. 

And so his _coup d'état_ came to an end. 

He stayed outside the wall of the valley of the Blind for two nights anddays without food or shelter, and meditated upon the unexpected. Duringthese meditations he repeated very frequently and always with a profoundernote of derision the exploded proverb: "In the Country of the Blind theOne-Eyed Man is King. " He thought chiefly of ways of fighting andconquering these people, and it grew clear that for him no practicable waywas possible. He had no weapons, and now it would be hard to get one. 

The canker of civilisation had got to him even in Bogota, and he could notfind it in himself to go down and assassinate a blind man. Of course, ifhe did that, he might then dictate terms on the threat of assassinatingthem all. But--sooner or later he must sleep!... 

He tried also to find food among the pine trees, to be comfortable underpine boughs while the frost fell at night, and--with less confidence--tocatch a llama by artifice in order to try to kill it--perhaps by hammeringit with a stone--and so finally, perhaps, to eat some of it. But thellamas had a doubt of him and regarded him with distrustful brown eyes, and spat when he drew near. Fear came on him the second day and fits ofshivering. Finally he crawled down to the wall of the Country of the Blindand tried to make terms. He crawled along by the stream, shouting, untiltwo blind men came out to the gate and talked to him. 

"I was mad, " he said. "But I was only newly made. "

They said that was better. 

He told them he was wiser now, and repented of all he had done. 

Then he wept without intention, for he was very weak and ill now, and theytook that as a favourable sign. 

They asked him if he still thought he could "_see_"

"No, " he said. "That was folly. The word means nothing--less thannothing!"

They asked him what was overhead. 

"About ten times ten the height of a man there is a roof above the world--of rock--and very, very smooth. " ... He burst again into hystericaltears. "Before you ask me any more, give me some food or I shall die. "

He expected dire punishments, but these blind people were capable oftoleration. They regarded his rebellion as but one more proof of hisgeneral idiocy and inferiority; and after they had whipped him theyappointed him to do the simplest and heaviest work they had for anyone todo, and he, seeing no other way of living, did submissively what he wastold. 

He was ill for some days, and they nursed him kindly. That refined hissubmission. But they insisted on his lying in the dark, and that was agreat misery. And blind philosophers came and talked to him of the wickedlevity of his mind, and reproved him so impressively for his doubts aboutthe lid of rock that covered their cosmic casserole that he almost doubtedwhether indeed he was not the victim of hallucination in not seeing itoverhead. 

So Nunez became a citizen of the Country of the Blind, and these peopleceased to be a generalised people and became individualities and familiarto him, while the world beyond the mountains became more and more remoteand unreal. There was Yacob, his master, a kindly man when not annoyed;there was Pedro, Yacob's nephew; and there was Medina-saroté, who was theyoungest daughter of Yacob. She was little esteemed in the world of theblind, because she had a clear-cut face, and lacked that satisfying, glossy smoothness that is the blind man's ideal of feminine beauty; butNunez thought her beautiful at first, and presently the most beautifulthing in the whole creation. Her closed eyelids were not sunken and redafter the common way of the valley, but lay as though they might openagain at any moment; and she had long eyelashes, which were considered agrave disfigurement. And her voice was strong, and did not satisfy theacute hearing of the valley swains. So that she had no lover. 

There came a time when Nunez thought that, could he win her, he would beresigned to live in the valley for all the rest of his days. 

He watched her; he sought opportunities of doing her little services, andpresently he found that she observed him. Once at a rest-day gatheringthey sat side by side in the dim starlight, and the music was sweet. Hishand came upon hers and he dared to clasp it. Then very tenderly shereturned his pressure. And one day, as they were at their meal in thedarkness, he felt her hand very softly seeking him, and as it chanced thefire leapt then and he saw the tenderness of her face. 

He sought to speak to her. 

He went to her one day when she was sitting in the summer moonlightspinning. The light made her a thing of silver and mystery. He sat down ather feet and told her he loved her, and told her how beautiful she seemedto him. He had a lover's voice, he spoke with a tender reverence that camenear to awe, and she had never before been touched by adoration. She madehim no definite answer, but it was clear his words pleased her. 

After that he talked to her whenever he could take an opportunity. Thevalley became the world for him, and the world beyond the mountains wheremen lived in sunlight seemed no more than a fairy tale he would some daypour into her ears. Very tentatively and timidly he spoke to her of sight. 

Sight seemed to her the most poetical of fancies, and she listened to hisdescription of the stars and the mountains and her own sweet white-litbeauty as though it was a guilty indulgence. She did not believe, shecould only half understand, but she was mysteriously delighted, and itseemed to him that she completely understood. 

His love lost its awe and took courage. Presently he was for demandingher of Yacob and the elders in marriage, but she became fearful anddelayed. And it was one of her elder sisters who first told Yacob thatMedina-saroté and Nunez were in love. 

There was from the first very great opposition to the marriage of Nunezand Medina-saroté; not so much because they valued her as because theyheld him as a being apart, an idiot, incompetent thing below thepermissible level of a man. Her sisters opposed it bitterly as bringingdiscredit on them all; and old Yacob, though he had formed a sort ofliking for his clumsy, obedient serf, shook his head and said the thingcould not be. The young men were all angry at the idea of corrupting therace, and one went so far as to revile and strike Nunez. He struck back. Then for the first time he found an advantage in seeing, even by twilight, and after that fight was over no one was disposed to raise a hand againsthim. But they still found his marriage impossible. 

Old Yacob had a tenderness for his last little daughter, and was grievedto have her weep upon his shoulder. 

"You see, my dear, he's an idiot. He has delusions; he can't do anythingright. "

"I know, " wept Medina-saroté. "But he's better than he was. He's gettingbetter. And he's strong, dear father, and kind--stronger and kinder thanany I other man in the world. And he loves me--and, father, I love him. "

Old Yacob was greatly distressed to find her inconsolable, and, besides--what made it more distressing--he liked Nunez for many things. So he wentand sat in the windowless council-chamber with the other elders andwatched the trend of the talk, and said, at the proper time, "He's betterthan he was. Very likely, some day, we shall find him as sane asourselves. "

Then afterwards one of the elders, who thought deeply, had an idea. He wasthe great doctor among these people, their medicine-man, and he had a veryphilosophical and inventive mind, and the idea of curing Nunez of hispeculiarities appealed to him. One day when Yacob was present he returnedto the topic of Nunez. 

"I have examined Bogota, " he said, "and the case is clearer to me. I thinkvery probably he might be cured. "

"That is what I have always hoped, " said old Yacob. 

"His brain is affected, " said the blind doctor. 

The elders murmured assent. 

"Now, _what_ affects it?"

"Ah!" said old Yacob. 

"_This_, " said the doctor, answering his own question. "Those queerthings that are called the eyes, and which exist to make an agreeable softdepression in the face, are diseased, in the case of Bogota, in such a wayas to affect his brain. They are greatly distended, he has eyelashes, andhis eyelids move, and consequently his brain is in a state of constantirritation and distraction. "

"Yes?" said old Yacob. "Yes?"

"And I think I may say with reasonable certainty that, in order to curehim completely, all that we need do is a simple and easy surgicaloperation--namely, to remove these irritant bodies. "

"And then he will be sane?"

"Then he will be perfectly sane, and a quite admirable citizen. "

"Thank Heaven for science!" said old Yacob, and went forth at once to tellNunez of his happy hopes. 

But Nunez's manner of receiving the good news struck him as being cold anddisappointing. 

"One might think, " he said, "from the tone you take, that you did not carefor my daughter. "

It was Medina-saroté who persuaded Nunez to face the blind surgeons. 

"_You_ do not want me, " he said, "to lose my gift of sight?"

She shook her head. 

"My world is sight. "

Her head drooped lower. 

"There are the beautiful things, the beautiful little things--the flowers, the lichens among the rocks, the lightness and softness on a piece of fur, the far sky with its drifting down of clouds, the sunsets and the stars. And there is _you_. For you alone it is good to have sight, to seeyour sweet, serene face, your kindly lips, your dear, beautiful handsfolded together... It is these eyes of mine you won, these eyes that holdme to you, that these idiots seek. Instead, I must touch you, hear you, and never see you again. I must come under that roof of rock and stone anddarkness, that horrible roof under which your imagination stoops... No; you would not have me do that?"

A disagreeable doubt had arisen in him. He stopped, and left the thing aquestion. 

"I wish, " she said, "sometimes----" She paused. 

"Yes, " said he, a little apprehensively. 

"I wish sometimes--you would not talk like that. "

"Like what?"

"I know it's pretty--it's your imagination. I love it, but _now_----"

He felt cold. "_Now_?" he said faintly. 

She sat quite still. 

"You mean--you think--I should be better, better perhaps-----"

He was realising things very swiftly. He felt anger, indeed, anger at thedull course of fate, but also sympathy for her lack of understanding--asympathy near akin to pity. 

"_Dear_, " he said, and he could see by her whiteness how intenselyher spirit pressed against the things she could not say. He put his armsabout her, he kissed her ear, and they sat for a time in silence. 

"If I were to consent to this?" he said at last, in a voice that was verygentle. 

She flung her arms about him, weeping wildly. "Oh, if you would, " shesobbed, "if only you would!"

 * * * * *

For a week before the operation that was to raise him from his servitudeand inferiority to the level of a blind citizen, Nunez knew nothing ofsleep, and all through the warm sunlit hours, while the others slumberedhappily, he sat brooding or wandered aimlessly, trying to bring his mindto bear on his dilemma. He had given his answer, he had given his consent, and still he was not sure. And at last work-time was over, the sun rose insplendour over the golden crests, and his last day of vision began forhim. He had a few minutes with Medina-saroté before she went apart tosleep. 

"To-morrow, " he said, "I shall see no more. "

"Dear heart!" she answered, and pressed his hands with all her strength. 

"They will hurt you but little, " she said; "and you are going through thispain--you are going through it, dear lover, for _me_... Dear, if awoman's heart and life can do it, I will repay you. My dearest one, mydearest with the tender voice, I will repay. "

He was drenched in pity for himself and her. 

He held her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers, and looked on hersweet face for the last time. "Good-bye!" he whispered at that dear sight, "good-bye!"

And then in silence he turned away from her. 

She could hear his slow retreating footsteps, and something in the rhythmof them threw her into a passion of weeping. 

He had fully meant to go to a lonely place where the meadows werebeautiful with white narcissus, and there remain until the hour of hissacrifice should come, but as he went he lifted up his eyes and saw themorning, the morning like an angel in golden armour, marching down thesteeps... 

It seemed to him that before this splendour he, and this blind world inthe valley, and his love, and all, were no more than a pit of sin. 

He did not turn aside as he had meant to do, but went on, and passedthrough the wall of the circumference and out upon the rocks, and his eyeswere always upon the sunlit ice and snow. 

He saw their infinite beauty, and his imagination soared over them to thethings beyond he was now to resign for ever. 

He thought of that great free world he was parted from, the world that washis own, and he had a vision of those further slopes, distance beyonddistance, with Bogota, a place of multitudinous stirring beauty, a gloryby day, a luminous mystery by night, a place of palaces and fountains andstatues and white houses, lying beautifully in the middle distance. Hethought how for a day or so one might come down through passes, drawingever nearer and nearer to its busy streets and ways. He thought of theriver journey, day by day, from great Bogota to the still vaster worldbeyond, through towns and villages, forest and desert places, the rushingriver day by day, until its banks receded and the big steamers camesplashing by, and one had reached the sea--the limitless sea, with itsthousand islands, its thousands of islands, and its ships seen dimly faraway in their incessant journeyings round and about that greater world. And there, unpent by mountains, one saw the sky--the sky, not such a discas one saw it here, but an arch of immeasurable blue, a deep of deeps inwhich the circling stars were floating... 

His eyes scrutinised the great curtain of the mountains with a keenerinquiry. 

For example, if one went so, up that gully and to that chimney there, thenone might come out high among those stunted pines that ran round in a sortof shelf and rose still higher and higher as it passed above the gorge. And then? That talus might be managed. Thence perhaps a climb might befound to take him up to the precipice that came below the snow; and ifthat chimney failed, then another farther to the east might serve hispurpose better. And then? Then one would be out upon the amber-lit snowthere, and half-way up to the crest of those beautiful desolations. 

He glanced back at the village, then turned right round and regarded itsteadfastly. 

He thought of Medina-saroté, and she had become small and remote. 

He turned again towards the mountain wall, down which the day had come tohim. 

Then very circumspectly he began to climb. 

When sunset came he was no longer climbing, but he was far and high. Hehad been higher, but he was still very high. His clothes were torn, hislimbs were blood-stained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as ifhe were at his ease, and there was a smile on his face. 

From where he rested the valley seemed as if it were in a pit and nearly amile below. Already it was dim with haze and shadow, though the mountainsummits around him were things of light and fire. The mountain summitsaround him were things of light and fire, and the little details of therocks near at hand were drenched with subtle beauty--a vein of greenmineral piercing the grey, the flash of crystal faces here and there, aminute, minutely-beautiful orange lichen close beside his face. There weredeep mysterious shadows in the gorge, blue deepening into purple, andpurple into a luminous darkness, and overhead was the illimitable vastnessof the sky. But he heeded these things no longer, but lay quite inactivethere, smiling as if he were satisfied merely to have escaped from thevalley of the Blind in which he had thought to be King. 

The glow of the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he laypeacefully contented under the cold clear stars. 

 XXXIII. 

 THE BEAUTIFUL SUIT. 

There was once a little man whose mother made him a beautiful suit ofclothes. It was green and gold, and woven so that I cannot describe howdelicate and fine it was, and there was a tie of orange fluffiness thattied up under his chin. And the buttons in their newness shone like stars. He was proud and pleased by his suit beyond measure, and stood before thelong looking-glass when first he put it on, so astonished and delightedwith it that he could hardly turn himself away. He wanted to wear iteverywhere, and show it to all sorts of people. He thought over all theplaces he had ever visited, and all the scenes he had ever hearddescribed, and tried to imagine what the feel of it would be if he were togo now to those scenes and places wearing his shining suit, and he wantedto go out forthwith into the long grass and the hot sunshine of the meadowwearing it. Just to wear it! But his mother told him "No. " She told him hemust take great care of his suit, for never would he have another nearlyso fine; he must save it and save it, and only wear it on rare and greatoccasions. It was his wedding-suit, she said. And she took the buttons andtwisted them up with tissue paper for fear their bright newness should betarnished, and she tacked little guards over the cuffs and elbows, andwherever the suit was most likely to come to harm. He hated and resistedthese things, but what could he do? And at last her warnings andpersuasions had effect, and he consented to take off his beautiful suitand fold it into its proper creases, and put it away. It was almost asthough he gave it up again. But he was always thinking of wearing it, andof the supreme occasions when some day it might be worn without theguards, without the tissue paper on the buttons, utterly and delightfully, never caring, beautiful beyond measure. 

One night, when he was dreaming of it after his habit, he dreamt he tookthe tissue paper from one of the buttons, and found its brightness alittle faded, and that distressed him mightily in his dream. He polishedthe poor faded button and polished it, and, if anything, it grew duller. He woke up and lay awake, thinking of the brightness a little dulled, andwondering how he would feel if perhaps when the great occasion (whateverit might be) should arrive, one button should chance to be ever so littleshort of its first glittering freshness, and for days and days thatthought remained with him distressingly. And when next his mother let himwear his suit, he was tempted and nearly gave way to the temptation justto fumble off one little bit of tissue paper and see if indeed the buttonswere keeping as bright as ever. 

He went trimly along on his way to church, full of this wild desire. Foryou must know his mother did, with repeated and careful warnings, let himwear his suit at times, on Sundays, for example, to and fro from church, when there was no threatening of rain, no dust blowing, nor anything toinjure it, with its buttons covered and its protections tacked upon it, and a sun-shade in his hand to shadow it if there seemed too strong asunlight for its colours. And always, after such occasions, he brushed itover and folded it exquisitely as she had taught him, and put it awayagain. 

Now all these restrictions his mother set to the wearing of his suit heobeyed, always he obeyed them, until one strange night he woke up and sawthe moonlight shining outside his window. It seemed to him the moonlightwas not common moonlight, nor the night a common night, and for awhile helay quite drowsily, with this odd persuasion in his mind. Thought joinedon to thought like things that whisper warmly in the shadows. Then he satup in his little bed suddenly very alert, with his heart beating veryfast, and a quiver in his body from top to toe. He had made up his mind. He knew that now he was going to wear his suit as it should be worn. Hehad no doubt in the matter. He was afraid, terribly afraid, but glad, glad. 

He got out of his bed and stood for a moment by the window looking at themoonshine-flooded garden, and trembling at the thing he meant to do. Theair was full of a minute clamour of crickets and murmurings, of theinfinitesimal shoutings of little living things. He went very gentlyacross the creaking boards, for fear that he might wake the sleepinghouse, to the big dark clothes-press wherein his beautiful suit layfolded, and he took it out garment by garment, and softly and very eagerlytore off its tissue-paper covering and its tacked protections until thereit was, perfect and delightful as he had seen it when first his mother hadgiven it to him--a long time it seemed ago. Not a button had tarnished, not a thread had faded on this dear suit of his; he was glad enough forweeping as in a noiseless hurry he put it on. And then back he went, softand quick, to the window that looked out upon the garden, and stood therefor a minute, shining in the moonlight, with his buttons twinkling likestars, before he got out on the sill, and, making as little of a rustlingas he could, clambered down to the garden path below. He stood before hismother's house, and it was white and nearly as plain as by day, with everywindow-blind but his own shut like an eye that sleeps. The trees caststill shadows like intricate black lace upon the wall. 

The garden in the moonlight was very different from the garden by day;moonshine was tangled in the hedges and stretched in phantom cobwebs fromspray to spray. Every flower was gleaming white or crimson black, and theair was a-quiver with the thridding of small crickets and nightingalessinging unseen in the depths of the trees. 

There was no darkness in the world, but only warm, mysterious shadows, and all the leaves and spikes were edged and lined with iridescent jewelsof dew. The night was warmer than any night had ever been, the heavensby some miracle at once vaster and nearer, and, spite of the greativory-tinted moon that ruled the world, the sky was full of stars. 

The little man did not shout nor sing for all his infinite gladness. Hestood for a time like one awestricken, and then, with a queer small cryand holding out his arms, he ran out as if he would embrace at once thewhole round immensity of the world. He did not follow the neat set pathsthat cut the garden squarely, but thrust across the beds and through thewet, tall, scented herbs, through the night-stock and the nicotine and theclusters of phantom white mallow flowers and through the thickets ofsouthernwood and lavender, and knee-deep across a wide space ofmignonette. He came to the great hedge, and he thrust his way through it;and though the thorns of the brambles scored him deeply and tore threadsfrom his wonderful suit, and though burrs and goose-grass and haverscaught and clung to him, he did not care. He did not care, for he knew itwas all part of the wearing for which he had longed. "I am glad I put onmy suit, " he said; "I am glad I wore my suit. "

Beyond the hedge he came to the duck-pond, or at least to what was theduck-pond by day. But by night it was a great bowl of silver moonshine allnoisy with singing frogs, of wonderful silver moonshine twisted andclotted with strange patternings, and the little man ran down into itswaters between the thin black rushes, knee-deep and waist-deep and to hisshoulders, smiting the water to black and shining wavelets with eitherhand, swaying and shivering wavelets, amidst which the stars were nettedin the tangled reflections of the brooding trees upon the bank. He wadeduntil he swam, and so he crossed the pond and came out upon the otherside, trailing, as it seemed to him, not duckweed, but very silver inlong, clinging, dripping masses. And up he went through the transfiguredtangles of the willow-herb and the uncut seeding grasses of the fartherbank. He came glad and breathless into the high-road. "I am glad, " hesaid, "beyond measure, that I had clothes that fitted this occasion. "

The high-road ran straight as an arrow flies, straight into the deep-bluepit of sky beneath the moon, a white and shining road between the singingnightingales, and along it he went, running now and leaping, and nowwalking and rejoicing, in the clothes his mother had made for him withtireless, loving hands. The road was deep in dust, but that for him wasonly soft whiteness; and as he went a great dim moth came fluttering roundhis wet and shimmering and hastening figure. At first he did not heed themoth, and then he waved his hands at it, and made a sort of dance with itas it circled round his head. "Soft moth!" he cried, "dear moth! Andwonderful night, wonderful night of the world! Do you think my clothes arebeautiful, dear moth? As beautiful as your scales and all this silvervesture of the earth and sky?"

And the moth circled closer and closer until at last its velvet wings justbrushed his lips... 

 * * * * *

And next morning they found him dead, with his neck broken, in the bottomof the stone pit, with his beautiful clothes a little bloody, and foul andstained with the duckweed from the pond. But his face was a face of suchhappiness that, had you seen it, you would have understood indeed how thathe had died happy, never knowing that cool and streaming silver for theduckweed in the pond.